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STORIES OF PROVENCE 

i'EOM THE FRENCH OF ALPHONSE DAUDET 

^ » 

{LETTRE8 BE MON MOULIN) 

I ' - - 

By S. L. lee 

/ 

Copyright, 1886, by Harpek & Brothers 


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CONTENTS 




, PAQK 

Introduction 3 

Maitre Cornille’s Secret 9 

- The Pope’s Mule 17 

Mr. Seguin’s Goat 31 

The Old Couple 40 

The Reverend Father Gaucher’s Elixir 60 

The Woman of Arles 63 

Ballads in Prose 70 

The Death of the Dauphin 70 

^ The Sub-prefect in the Country 72 V 

The Cure of Cucugnan ' 77 

The Light-house at the Sanguinaires 84 

The Wreck of the “Semillante” 92 

Legend of the Man with Gold Brains 101 

Bixiou’s Pocket-book /’ • . 107 

The Poet Mistral 114 

“-Thr Two Inns 123 

At Milianah 129 

Homesickness 143 




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1 


STOEIES OP PROVENCE. 


INTRODUCTION. 

In presence of Maitre Honorat Grapazi, notary, 
appeared 

“ Mr. Gaspard Mitifio, husband of Yivette Cornille, 
manager at place known as ‘The Cigalieres’ and 
there residing, 

“ Who, by these presents, has sold and conveyed, 
free of debts and mortgages, 

“ To Mr. Alphonse Daudet, poet, resident of Paris, 

“ A wmdmill, situated in the valley of the Phone, 
in the heart of Provence, on a little hill-side covered 
with pine and oak trees ; said mill having for up- 
ward of twenty years been abandoned and out of 
repail-, as by the wild vines, mosses, rosemary, and 
other creepers climbing to the very top of its fan 
attested. 

“Notwithstanding, in its present state, with its 
broken wheel, and with grass growing in the bricks 
of its platform, said Mr. Alphonse Daudet avers that 


4 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


he finds it well suited to his poetic undertakings, 
that he accepts it at his own risk and peril, and with- 
out recourse against the vender on account of re- 
pairs. 

“ This sale has taken place in presence of the nota- 
ries and undersigned witnesses, full amount of the 
stipulated sum having been paid over to Mr. Mitifio 
and receipt given. 

“ Done at Pamperigouste, in the Honorat office, in 
presence of Francet Mamai, fifer, and Louiset Le 
Qniqne, cross- bearer for the White Penitents, who, 
with the parties and the notary have signed after 
reading.” 

What astonished rabbits they were ! They had so 
long seen the mill closed and its walls and platform 
overgrown with weeds, that they had come to believe 
the race of millers to be extinct, and finding the 
place convenient, had chosen it as their head-quarters, 
a centre, as it were, of strategic operations — a rabbits’ 
Jemappes’ mill. The night of my arrival there must 
have been at least twenty, seated in a circle on the 
platform, about warming their feet in a ray of moon- 
light. There was but just time to open a dormer 
window, when frr-rt ! here is the whole bivouac put 
to rout and scampering off, their tails high in the air, 
showing their little white hind-legs as they disappear 
in the thicket. I hope they will return. 


INTRODUCTION. 


Some one else was greatly astonished at sight of 
me. This was a sinister old owl with a meditative 
face, who had inhabited the mill for some twenty 
years. I found him in the upper story, sitting mo- 
tionless on the horizontal shaft amid the fallen tiles 
and rubbish. He gazed at me a moment out of his 
round eye, and frightened at not recognizing me, set 
up a “ Hou ! hou !” slowly flapping his dust-covered 
wings (these greatest of musers — they never brush 
themselves !) But in despite of his blinking eyes and 
scowling mien, this silent lodger pleases me better 
than any other, and I hastened to renew his lease. 
He will keep as before the upper story with an en- 
trance by the roof, while I reserve for myself the 
apartment below ; a small whitewashed room, with 
a ceiling low, and vaulted like a convent refectory. 

It is there that I am writing, with my door opened 
wide to the bright sunshine. A pretty pine wood, 
sparkling with light, covers the hill-side in front of 
me. On the horizon the sharp peaks of the Alps are 
clearly outlined. Hot a sound — barely at intervals 
the note of a flfe, a curlew in the lavender, the tinkle 
of a mule-bell along the road. All this lovely Pro- 
vencal landscape lives only by the light. 

And now, how would you have me regret your 
noisy, smoky Paris? I arn so content here in my 
mill ! It is the very corner I have longed for, a lit- 
tle, perfumed, warm nook, a thousand leagues’ dis- 


6 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


taiice from newspapers, hacks, and fog. And tlien 
what pretty objects I see around me ! I have been 
here barely a week, and already my brain is filled 
with impressions and recollections. Only yesterday 
I was witness to the return of the flocks to a 
farm at the foot of the hill ; and I declare to you 
that I would not have exchanged the spectacle for 
all the premicu’es you have had in Paris this week. 
Judge for yourself. 

I must explain that it is the custom in Provence 
to send the cattle to the Alps when the warm season 
begins. Beasts and men pass five or six months 
there, sleeping in the open air in grass waist-high. 
With the first breath of autumn they return to the 
farm, to browze tranquilly on the gray hillocks per- 
fumed wfith rosemary. Yesterday evening the flocks 
returned. All day long the gate had stood wide , 
open expecting them, and the folds were filled with 
fresh straw. From time to time you might hear, 
“Now they are at Eyguieres” “Now they are at 
Paradou ” — and towards evening a great shout — 
“Here they come!” and the di’ove was seen advanc- 
ing in a glory of dust. First came the savage old 
rams wdth their horns; behind them the largest of 
the sheep, the mothers a trifle weary, with their nurse- 
lings between their feet; the mules, with their red 
topknots, bearing the lamblings of a day old in bas- 
kets, and rocking them as they walked ; then the 


INTRODUCTION. 


7 


dogs, sweating, with their tongues hanging to the 
ground; and, lastly, two tall shepherds with red 
serge cloaks down to their feet, like copes. 

All these detiled gayly before me, and rushed 
through the gate with a pattering like a shower of 
rain. You should have seen the excitement inside! 
The blue - and -gold peacocks welcomed them from 
their roosts with a trumpet -cry, the sleeping fowls 
started up with a bound; all were on their feet — 
pigeons, ducks, turkeys, guinea-fowls ; the hens talked 
of spending the night. One would think each sheep 
had brought away in its wool, together with a scent 
of wild Alps, a little of the sharp mountain air that 
intoxicates and makes one dance. 

It was in the midst of all this hubbub that the 
flocks gained their shelters. The old rams were 
melted to see once more their familiar cribs, the lit- 
tle lambs born daring the absence gazed about them 
in bewilderment. But the most touching sight of 
all was the dogs, the brave shepherd dogs, busied 
with their flocks and with eyes for nothing else. In 
vain the guard-dog called to them from his kennel ; 
the bucket at the well, filled with fresh water, beck- 
oned them in vain ; they could see or hear nothing 
till the beasts were housed, till the great latchet of 
the lattice gate was dropped, and the shepherds seat- 
ed at table in the basement. Then and only then 
could they be tempted to make for their kennels, and 


8 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


there, wliile lapping their soup, relate to their com- 
rades of the farm the things they had seen in the 
mountains yonder — a dark country, where there are 
wolves, and purple foxglove brimming over with the 
dew. 


MAlTRE COENILLE’S SECRET. 

Feancet Mamai, fifer, who comes now and then to 
pass an evening with me, told me the other day the 
story of a little village tragedy of which my mill 
was witness some twenty years ago. The old codger’s 
story touched me, and I will try to tell it you as ’twas 
told to me. 

Fancy, dear readers, that you are seated before an 
aromatic wine-jug and that an old fifer is talking to 
you. 

Our country, dear sir, has not always been sleepy 
and void of renown as you see it to-day. In former 
days a great milling business was done here, and for 
ten leagues around people from the farms would 
bring us their grain to grind. To right and left 
nothing was to be seen but fans turning in the mistral 
above the pine-trees, troops of little donkeys, laden 
with bags, ascending and descending the hills, and 
all the week long it did one good to hear tlie crack- 
ing of whips, the creaking of sails, and the “ Dia 
hue !” of the millers’ boys. On Sundays we would 
all flock to the mills in troops, the miller would be 
there dealing out muscat, his wife and daughters 


10 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


pretty as queens with their lace fichus and gold 
crowns. I would bring my fife, and there would be 
a dancing of farandoles till away into tlie night. 
It was the mills, you must know sir, that made the 
joy and riches of our country. 

Unhappily, it came into the heads of some French- 
men from Paris to build a steam-mill on the Taras- 
con road, all fine and new,” as they say with us. 
People took to sending their grain to the steam-mills 
and the poor windmills were left with nothing to do. 
For a while they tried to struggle along, but steam 
proved the stronger, and one by one they were forced 
to shut up. The little donkeys were seen no more, 
the pretty miller girls sold their gold crowns — no 
more muscat — no more farandole. The mistral blew 
in vain, the fans were motionless. At last, one fine 
day the commune levelled all these abandoned ruins 
to the ground, and vines and olives were planted in 
their stead. 

But one mill still held its own amid all this havoc, 
and continued turning valiantly on its little hillock 
in the very teeth of the steam- mills. This was 
Maitre Cornille’s mill, the very same where we are 
now passing the evening. 

Maitre Cornille was an old miller who had lived 
in fiour for sixty years and was a fanatic in his pro- 
fession. The establishing of the steam -mills had 
fairly driven him mad. For eight hours he had run 


MAITRE* CORNILLE’S SECRET. 


11 


to and fro in the village trying to stir np the inhab- 
itants, shouting at the top of his lungs that villains 
were trying to poison Provence with steara-inill flour. 

Keep away from them !” he vociferated, “ keep 
away from these rascals that make flour by steam, 
an invention of the devil, instead of the wind which 
is the breath of the good God.” And so he went 
on with no end of fine words to the praise of wind- 
mills. But nobody listened. 

In a fit of spleen the old man shut himself np in 
his mill and lived all alone like a wild beast. Not 
even his grandchild Yivette, a girl fifteen years old, 
who since the death of her parents had only her 
“grandy” in the world, was permitted to stay with 
him. The poor girl, compelled to work for her liv- 
ing, would hire herself out at the farms for harvest- 
time, or the olive or silk-worm season. And yet her 
grandfather seemed fond of her too, and would 
sometimes walk four leagues in the hot sun to see 
her at the mas where she was at work, and would 
spend whole hours looking at her and weeping. 

The people in the country around said that the old 
man had sent Vivette away out of stinginess, and 
that it was a shame for him to sufi^er the poor child 
to be dragged from farm to farm, exposed to the 
brutalities of the bdiles and all the annoyances of a 
young girl at service. It was pitiful, too, to see a 
man like Maitre Cornille, who had always been re- 


12 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


spected, going about the streets ragged and barefoot 
like a tramp. And the fact is, when he would come 
to mass of a Sunday, we old folks felt positively 
ashamed for him, and he felt ashamed himself, for, 
instead of taking a seat on the bench with us, he 
stayed at the farther end of the church, with the 
beggars, by the holy water. 

Aside from all this, there was a mystery about 
Maitre Cornille that none of us could fathom. It 
was a long time since any of the villagers had carried 
their grain to him to grind, and still his fan went on 
turning the same as ever, and of an evening we would 
meet the old miller on the road, driving his donkey 
laden with bags before him. 

‘‘ Good-evening to you, Maitre Cornille,” the neigh- 
bors would call out. “ So your mill is still running ?” 

“ Still running, children,” the old man would an- 
swer, gayly. ‘‘ Thank the Lord there is no lack of 
work.” 

If any one asked, “ And where the deuce does the 
work come from ?” he would place his finger on his 
lips and answer with an air of solemn importance, 

“ Motus ! I work for the exportation !” And not 
another syllable could be got out of him. 

As for putting one’s nose inside of the mill, no one 
dreamed of it. When any one passed the door was 
always closed, the great fan flying, the old donkey 
browsing on the weeds of the platform, and a big 


MAiTRE CORNILLE’s SECRET. 13 

lean cat sat curled up on the window-sill, eying you 
maliciously. 

All this mystery created a deal of talk. There 
was no one but had his own explanation of Maitre 
Cornille’s secret, but it was whispered about that 
there were more bags of crowns in that mill than 
bags of flour. 

But at last it all came out, and this was how. 

As I was playing my fife one day for the young 
people to dance, I observed that the oldest of my 
boys and the little Yivette loved each other. I was 
pleased to see it, for the name of Cornille was held 
in honor among us, and I thought it would be a 
pleasant thing to have this little sparrow of a Yivette 
hopping about my house. But as the lovers had fre- 
quent opportunities of being together I wanted to 
see the affair settled, so I went to the mill to speak 
to the old grandfather. What a reception I had 
from him, the old wizard ! He couldn’t be prevailed 
on to open the door, so I had to explain myself as 
best I could through the key-hole, with the big lean 
cat snoring like the devil over my head. 

But the old man wouldn’t let me finish. He 
shouted out to me very roughly to go back to my 
flute, and if I was in a hurry to marry my son I 
might look up a girl at the steam-mill. Fancy how 
my blood boiled at being spoken to like that, but I 


14 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


prudently restrained myself, and, leaving the old 
madman to his mill, I returned to tell the children 
of my discomfiture. They couldn’t believe it, poor 
lambs, and begged that we might all go together 
and speak to the grandfather. I hadn’t the heart 
to refuse them, so ofi I started with my pair of 
lovers. 

When we arrived at the mill Maitre Cornille had 
just gone out. He had double-locked the door, but 
had left his ladder outside, and the idea came into 
the children’s heads to get in at the window and see 
what this famous mill contained. 

It proved to be empty! There was not a bag 
of flour, not a grain of wheat, not an atom of flour 
on the walls or clinging to the cobwebs, none of the 
pleasant, fresh fragrance of crushed wheat. The hor- 
izontal shaft was covered with dust, and the big lean 
cat fast asleep on the window. 

In the room below there was the same air of pov- 
erty and abandonment — a wretched bed, a morsel of 
bread on one of the steps, and in a corner several 
bags that had burst, out of which sand and rubbish 
were spilling. 

This was Maitre Cornille’s secret. It was this 
trash that he carried over the roads every evening to 
save the honor of his mill, and have it appear that 
flour was still ground in it. Poor mill ! Poor Cor- 
nille I Though the steam-mills had long ago robbed 


MAITRE CORNILLE’s SECRET. 


15 


him of his last customer, his fan still turned, but it 
turned on empty air. 

The children were in tears as they came to tell me 
what they had seen. Their story went to my heart. 
Without losing a moment I ran to the neighbors, 
told it them in a few words, and we agreed to carry 
at once to Maitre Cornille’s mill all the wheat in our 
granaries. 

No sooner said than done. The whole village set 
out, and we arrived at the mill with our procession 
of donkeys laden with wheat — real wheat this time. 
The mill door stood open. Before it sat Maitre 
Cornille on a bag of rubbish, his head buried in his 
hands, sobbing. He had just discovered that some 
one had entered his mill in his absence and surprised 
his secret. 

“ Nothing is left me but to die !” he said. ‘‘ The 
mill is dishonored!” And he wept and sobbed to 
break one’s heart, calling his mill by all sorts of en- 
dearing names, talking to it as if it had been a real 
living person. 

At this moment the donkeys arrived before the 
door, and we all began to shout, as in the old mill- 
ing days, “ Ohay ! for the mill ! Ohay ! Maitre Cor- 
nille 1” And soon we had the bags piled up against 
the door, and the beautiful red grain spilling out in 
all directions. 

Maitre Cornille opened his eyes wide. He took 


16 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


some of the wheat in the hollow of his old hand, 
laughing and crying at once. 

“It is wheat, blessed Lord! real wheat! Let me 
alone while I look at it.” Then turning to us, “Ah ! 
I knew you would come back to me ; the steam-mill- 
ers are rascals.” 

We wanted to carry him in triumph through the 
town. “ No, no, my children,” he said, “ I must first 
feed my mill. Think how long since it has swal- 
lowed a morsel !” 

And the tears were in all our eyes as we saw the 
old man busying himself right and left, emptying the 
bags, and looking at the mill as the grain crumbled 
and the fine powder fiew to the ceiling. 

It is but justice to ourselves to add that from this 
time we never suffered the old miller to want for 
work. 

But at last Maitre Cornille died, and the fan of 
our last mill ceased to turn, this time forever. What 
would you have, sir ? All things come to an end in 
this world, and we must believe that windmills too 
have had their day, together with track-boats on the 
Bhone, parliaments, and flowered jackets. 


THE POPE’S MULE. 


Of all the pretty sayings, proverbs, or adages with 
which our Provencal peasants interlard their dis- 
course, I know of none more picturesque or more 
singular than this. For leagues around my mill it 
is the custom to say, in speaking of a rancorous, vin- 
dictive man, “ Beware of that man ; he is like the 
pope’s mule, he keeps his kick seven years.” 

I tried for a long time to ascertain the origin of 
this proverb — what was meant by this papal mule, 
and this kick kept seven years. But no one could 
throw any light on the question, not even Francet 
Mamai, my hfer, though he has his Provencal legend- 
ary lore at his fingers’ ends. Francet thinks with 
me that it must have reference to some ancient 
chronicle of Avignon. “ You will find that only in 
the library of the cicadas,” he said to me, with a 
laugh. The idea struck me as a good one, and the 
cicada’s library being right at my door, I shut my- 
self up in it for a week. 

It is a beautiful library, admirably well stocked, 
open to the poets day and night, and served by little 
librarians with cymbals that make music for you all 
2 . 


18 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


the time. I passed several delicious days there ; and 
after a week’s research — on my back — I found at 
last what I wanted — that is, the story of my mule 
and the kick kept seven years. It is a pretty story, 
albeit a trifle naif, and I will try to tell it you as I 
read it yesterday morning in a time-colored manu- 
script, with a delicious scent of dry lavender, and 
with large cobwebs for clasps. 

Whoever did not see Avignon in the days of the 
popes has seen nothing. For gayety, life, animation, 
feasting, never was there such a city. From morn- 
ing till night there were processions and pilgrimages, 
streets strewn with flowers, high-warp tapestry, car- 
dinals arriving by the Rhone, banners flying, galleys 
streaming, the pope’s soldiers chanting their Latin on 
the squares, mendicant friars with their rattles; and 
from top to bottom of the houses that swarmed about 
the papal palace like bees about their hive, there was 
the tic-tac of lace-makers, the flying of shuttles weav- 
ing the gold of the chasubles, the little hammers of 
cruet - carvers, the tuning of sounding-boards, the 
songs of warping- women ; and above all this, the 
ringing of bells, and always a few drums rolling on 
the bridge. For with us, when the people are happy 
they must dance, and the streets being too narrow 
for the farandole, fifes and drums were posted on 
the Avignon bridge, and day and night they danced 
in the fresh air from the Rhone. Ah, happy days ! 


THE pope’s mule. 


19 


happy city ! days of halberds that did not cut, and 
prisons used for storing wine ! No famine ! no war ! 
This is how the Avignon popes understood governing 
their people. This is why their people so sorely re- 
gretted them. 

There was one in particular, a good old pope named 
Boniface. What rivers of tears flowed in Avignon 
when he died ! He was so amiable, so handsome a 
prince ! He smiled to you so benignly from the back 
of his mule, and whether you were the poor madder 
dyer or the great “ viguier ” of the town, gave you 
his blessing so civilly as he passed ! A real Pope of 
Yvetot, but a Proven9al Yvetot, with something sly 
in his laugh, a bunch of marjoram in his berretta, 
and not the least Jenny. The only Jenny this good 
father h%d ever known was his vine — a little vine 
which he had planted himself three leagues from 
Avignon, among the myrtles of Chateauneuf. 

Every Sunday after vespers the worthy man would 
go to pay his court to her; and when there, seated in 
the bright sun, his mule at his side and his cardinals 
all around, he would uncork a bottle of his own wine, 
the beautiful red wine since known as Chateauneuf- 
des-papes, and sip it slowly while he gazed lovingly 
at his vine. Then, when the bottle was emptied and 
the sun gone down, he returned gayly to the town, 
followed by his whole chapter ; and when he passed 
the drums on the bridge, his mule, intoxicated by the 


20 


STORIES Oi' PROVENCE. 


music, would set off in a little canter, the pope him- 
self keeping time with his berretta, to the scandal 
of the cardinals, but which made all the people say, 
“ Ah ! the good prince, the dear pope !” 

Next to his Chateauiieuf vine, what the pope 
loved best in the world was his mule. In fact the 
good man doted on his beast. Every night before 
retiring to rest he went himself to see if the stable- 
door was shut close, the crib well filled ; and he 
never rose from table without seeing prepai*ed under 
his own eyes a large bowl of French wine with plenty 
of sugar and spices, which he carried her himself, re- 
gardless of the strictures of his cardinals. 

It is proper to add that the animal was not un- 
worthy of the trouble. She was a beautiful black 
mule, speckled red, with a shining skin and large, 
full croup, sure of foot, carrying proudly her little 
head all bedizened with knots and bows and silver 
bells ; withal gentle as a lamb, with an artless eye 
and two long ears always shaking, which gave her 
an easy, good-natured air. All Avignon respected 
her, and when she passed along the streets there was 
no sort of civility they did not show her. For in 
truth everybody knew this to be the surest way of 
winning favor at court, and that with all her inno- 
cent air the pope’s mule had helped many a one on 
the road to fortune, as witness Tistet Vedene and his 
wonderful career. 


THE pope’s mule. 


21 


This Tistet Vedene was an impudent, worthless 
varlet, whom Ids father, the gold-carver, had turned 
out-of-doors because he could not be made to work 
and demoralized his apprentices. For six months he 
might have been seen dragging his jacket in the 
Avignon gutters, but generally in the neighborhood 
of the papal mansion ; for the scamp entertained ideas 
of his own with regard to the pope’s mule, and very 
designing ones they were as will be seen. 

One day when his Holiness was walking alone 
under his w^alls with his beast, Tistet Yed^ne ap- 
proached, and clasping his hands in an ecstasy, ex- 
claimed. 

Oh, mon Dieu ! great Holy Father, what a 
beautiful mule ! Stop a moment while I look at 
her! Oh, Pope! what a mule! The Emperor of 
Germany hasn’t such an animal !” And he caressed 
her and spoke softly to her, as if she had been a girl. 
“ Come, my darling, my treasure, my sweet love !” 
And the good pope, all melted, said to himself, 
“ What a nice little boy ! what pretty ways he has 
with my mule<!” And do yon know what happened ? 
The next day Tistet Vedene exchanged his yellow 
jacket for a beautiful lace alb, a crimson silk camail, 
and buckled shoes, and entered the pope’s household, 
which had never before received any but sons of 
nobles and nephews of cardinals. So much for di- 
plomacy. But Tistet did not stop here. 


22 


STOKIES OF PROVENCE. 


Once established in the pope’s service the rascal 
continued the game which had succeeded so well. 
Insolent to the rest of the world, he was all thought- 
fulness and attention to the mule. He was constant- 
ly to be met in the palace court with a handful of 
oats or bundle of sainfoin, shaking the red clusters 
as he looked towards the Holy Father’s balcony, as 
much as to say, “Who is this for?” Till at last the 
good pope ended by intrusting to him the entire care 
of the stable and the office of carrying the mule her 
bowl of French wine — which didn’t make the car- 
dinals laugh. 

Neither did it make the mule laugh. Now, when 
the hour for her wine came, she always saw approach- 
ing five or six little boys attached to the household, 
with their camails and lace. Another moment and 
the stable was filled with a, warm scent of caramels 
and spices, and Tistet Yedene would appear, careful- 
ly carrying a bowl of French wine. Then the poor 
beast’s martyrdom would begin. 

This perfumed wine which she loved so, which 
kept her warm, which lent her wings, they had the 
cruelty to bring to her crib, to make her smell it, 
and then, when her nostrils were filled with the 
aroma of the beautiful ruby liquor, it would all be 
poured down the throats of these varlets. And as 
if to steal her wine were not enough, after they had 
been drinking they became like so many little devils. 


THE pope’s mule. 


23 


One would pull her ears, another her tail. Quiquet 
would mount on her back, Beloquet would try his 
berretta on her, and not one of the rascals once re- 
flected that the good creature, if she pleased, could 
launch a kick at them that would send them to the 
North Star, if not farther. But no! it is not for 
nothing that one is a papal mule, the mule of bene- 
dictions and indulgences. Do what they might she 
would not lose her temper with the boys ; it was only 
Tistet Yedene that she had hard thoughts of; she 
felt an itching in her hoofs when he was behind her. 
And indeed she had good cause — this scamp of a 
Tistet played her such ugly tricks. There was no 
end to his cruel inventiveness after he had drunk 
her wine. 

One day he took into his head to make her climb 
with him into the bell-tower on the top of the palace. 
This is no fable that I am about to relate. Two hun- 
dred thousand Proven9als saw it. Picture to your- 
self the unlucky mule, when, after turning and turn- 
ing in a spiral staircase and climbing I don’t know 
how many steps, she suddenly found herself on a 
platform sparkling with light, and saw, a thousand 
feet below her, a whole fantastic Avignon — market, 
shops no bigger than nuts, the pope’s soldiers look- 
ing like red ants before their barracks; on a silver 
thread a microscopic bridge where they danced. 
Ah ! how terrifled the poor beast was ! She raised 


24 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


a cry that made all the windows in the palace 
rattle. 

“What is the matter? what are they doing to her ?” 
exclaimed the good pope, rushing out on the balcony. 

Tistet Yed^ne was already on the balcony, weep- 
ing and wringing his hands. 

“ Ah ! great Holy Father, the matter is that your 
mule — mon Dieu ! what is to become of us ? — your 
mule has climbed into the bell-tower.” 

“All alone???” 

“Yes, great Holy Father, all alone. Look up 
yonder. Don’t you see her ears passing ? you might 
think they were two swallows.” 

Mishicorde exclaimed the pope, rolling his 
eyes, “ she has gone mad ! she will kill herself ! Will 
you come down, wretched beast ?” 

Come down ! She would have asked nothing bet- 
ter, but how ? The stairs were not to be thought of ; 
they might be climbed, but as for coming down, that 
would be to run a hundred risks of breaking her 
neck. And as the poor mule, in deep distress, 
walked round and round the platform, her large 
eyes full of vertigo, she thought of Tistet Yed^ne. 

“Ah! rascal! if I catch you again! what a kick 
I shall have for you to-morrow !” 

This idea of the kick put a little heart in her, and 
gave her strength to stand on her feet; otherwise 
she would have dropped. 


THE pope’s mule. 


25 


At last they came to take her down, and it was no 
trifling matter. She had to be lowered with a screw- 
jack, ropes, and a litter. And fancy what a humil- 
iation for the poor mule to see herself suspended 
from such a height, her feet dangling like a June 
bug at the end of a string ! And all Avignon look- 
ing on ! 

The poor beast never slept a wink that night. 
She seemed to be still turning, turning, around that 
accursed platform, with all the town below laughing. 
Then she thought of the infamous Tistet Ved^ne, 
and of the kick she would send him next morning. 
They should see the smoke of it all the way to Pam- 
pelune. 

But while this handsome reception was being pre- 
pared for him, what, think you, was Tistet Yed^ne 
doing? Sailing down the Phone, singing, on his 
way to the Court of Naples, with a troop of young 
nobles who were sent every year to practise them- 
selves in diplomacy and fine manners. Tistet Yed^ne 
was not a noble, but the pope felt that he owed him 
something for his attentions to his mule, especially for 
the activity he had displayed on the day of the rescue. 

What a disappointed mule that was the next morn- 
ing! “ The rascal ! he suspected something 1” thought 
she, shaking her bells with fury. “ But no matter, 
you shall have it yet I will keep it for you 1” And 
she kept it for him. 


26 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


After Tistet’s departure the pope’s mule resumed 
the old even tenor of her ways. There was no more 
Quiquet nor B^loquet. The good old days of French 
wine returned, and with them good humor, long 
siestas, and her little amble as she passed the bridge. 
Since her adventure, however, she could not but re- 
mark that the towns-people treated her a trifle coolly. 
There were whisperings as she passed, the old people 
would shake their heads, the children would laugh 
and point to the bell -tower. Even the good pope 
seemed to have lost a little of his old confldence in 
his friend, and when he would fall into a doze on 
her back was never without an uneasy after-thought : 
“ What if I should awake to And myself on the bell- 
tower!” The mule saw all this, and suffered in 
silence. Only when the name of Tistet Yedene was 
mentioned in her hearing, her long ears would quiver, 
and with a little chuckle she would sharpen her iron 
hoofs on the pavement. 

Matters went on thus for seven years, and then 
Tistet Yedene returned from the Court of Naples. 
His time there had not expired, but he had learned 
that the pope’s premier moutardier had just died sud- 
denly, and the place being a good one, had returned 
in haste to enter the lists. 

When this intriguer of a Yedene entered the hall 
of the palace the Holy Father scarcely recognized 
him, he was grown so much taller and stouter. It 


THE pope’s mule. 


27 


must be added that the old pope himself had aged, 
and could no longer see without his glasses. But 
Tistet was nothing daunted. 

“What! great Holy Father! you do not recognize 
me? It is I, Tistet Yed^ne.” 

“ Vedene?” 

“Yes; don’t you know? — that used to carry the 
French wine to your mule.” 

“ Ah ! yes, yes, I remember ; an excellent little 
fellow, Tistet Yedene. And what is it you want of 
us?” 

“Oh, not much, great Holy Father. I came to 
ask you — by -the -way, have you your mule still? 
And is she well ? Ah ! I am glad ! — I came to ask 
you for the place of the premier rn on tardier who has 
just died.” 

“ Premier moiitardier ! You ! But you are too 
young. What is your age?” 

“ Twenty years and two months, illustrious pontiff 
— j ust five years older than your mule. Ah ! palme de 
Dieio ! the dear, good creature ; if you knew how I 
loved that mule, how I pined for her in Italy ! Will 
you not let me see her?” 

“Yes, my child, you shall see her; and since you 
love the dear beast so I will not suffer you to live 
apart. From this day I attach you to my person in 
the capacity of premier moutardier. My cardinals 
will cry out, but I am used to that. Come to us to- 


28 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


morrow, aud we will invest you with the insignia of 
your office in presence of all the chapter. After 
that I will take you to see the mule, and you shall 
accompany me to visit the vine. Ha! ha!” 

Whether Tistet Yedene was happy as he quitted 
the great hall, with what impatience he waited for 
the ceremony of the next day, it is needless to relate. 
But some one else in the palace was even happier 
and more impatient than he. This was the mule. 
From the time of Tistet’s return till vespers the next 
day she never ceased to stuff herself with oats, and 
to draw close to the wall with her hind feet. 

She, too, was preparing for the ceremony. 

The next day, vespers being over, Tistet Yedene 
made his entry in the court of the papal palace. All 
the high clergy were there — the cardinals in red 
robes, the deviPs advocate in black velvet, the mon- 
astery abbes with their little mitres, the wardens of 
Saint Agrico, the pope’s household in their crimson 
camails, the lower clergy, the pope’s soldiers in full 
dress, the three orders of penitents, the hermits of 
Mount Yentour, the sacristans in their judges’ robes, 
the little clerk heading the procession with the hand- 
bell — all, all, to the dispensers of holy water, the 
lighter and extinguisher — not one was missing. Ah ! 
it was a grand ceremony — bells, petards, sunshine, 
music, and, as ever, the frenzied drum leading the 
dance on the bridge. 


THE pope’s mule. 


29 


When Yedene made his appearance, with his hand- 
some person and fine bearing, a murmur of admira- 
tion ran through the assemblage. He was a magnifi- 
cent Provencal of the blond type, with hair curling 
at the ends, and a wanton little beard that might 
have been made of the filings that fell from the 
graver of his fatlier, the sculptor in gold. Eumor 
said that the fingers of Queen Jeanne had toyed 
with this golden beard, and the Sire de Vedene had 
in truth the distrait and self-conscious air of the men 
whom queens have loved. To-day he had, in honor 
of his country, substituted for his Neapolitan vest- 
ments a red-bordered jacket d la Provengal, and on 
his chaperon there fioated a large plume of the ibis 
of Cam argue. 

When he entered, the premier moutardier bowed 
with a knightly grace, and turned to the grand steps 
where the pope was waiting to invest him with the 
insignia of his rank — the yellow boxwood spoon and 
the saffron coat. The mule was at the foot of the 
ste})s, caparisoned and ready to set out for the vine. 
Tistet smiled as he passed close to her, and paused a 
moment to give her a few friendly taps on the back, 
glancing out of the corner of his eye to see whether 
tlie pope was observing. Now was her chance! 
The position was excellent. “ Here, rascal 1 take 
that! I have kept it for you seven years.” And 
she launched him a kick so terrible, so terrible. 


80 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


that all the way to Pampeluiie they saw a whirlwind 
of golden smoke out of which fluttered an ibis 
plume. It was all that remained of the unfortu- 
nate Tistet Yedene. 

The kicks of mules are not commonly so terrific, 
it is true, but this was a papal mule, and then it had 
been kept seven years. A better example of ec- 
clesiastical rancor could hardly be found. 


ME. SEGUIN’S GOAT. 


You will be always the same, my poor Gringoire. 
What ! they offer you the position of reporter on a 
good Paris newspaper and you actually refuse ! Look 
about you, my poor young man. See this tattered 
doublet, these shoes down at the heels, this emaciated 
face, all telling their tale of hunger and want. This 
is what your passion for pretty rhyming will bring 
you to, this is what ten years’ faithful service to Sire 
Apollo are worth. Is it not enough to make one 
hang one’s head ? 

Become a reporter, imbecile, become a reporter. 
You will win beautiful gold crowns, have your seat 
at Brebant’s, and be able to exhibit yourself on pre- 
miere days with a new pen at your ear. 

You will not? You will preserve your freedom 
at any cost ? Listen, then, to the story of Mr. Seg- 
uin’s goat. You will see what it is to resolve to be 
free. 

Mr. Seguin never had any luck with his goats. 

He lost them all in the same way : one fine morn- 
ing they broke their chains, fled to the mountain, and 


32 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


the wolf ate them. Nothing could stop them — nei- 
ther the kindness of their master nor their fear of 
the wolf. These, you will observe, were independ- 
ent goats, who must have fresh air and freedom at 
any price. 

The good Mr. Seguin, not understanding the char- 
acter of his goats, was confounded. He said to him- 
self, “ It is no use, they all get tired of me ; I shall 
never keep one.” 

However, he would not be disheartened, but after 
losing six goats in the same way, he bought a seventh, 
only this time he took care to secure a very young one, 
hoping he might accustom it to living with him. 

Ah, Gringoire ! how pretty it was, with its soft 
eyes, handsome military beard, shining black hoofs, 
striped horns, and long white hair like a great-coat. 
It was nearly as charming as Esmeralda’s kid — you 
remember, Gringoire ? and then so docile, letting her- 
self be milked without budging or ever putting her 
foot in the pail. A very love of a little goat. 

Behind Mr. Seguin’s house was a space enclosed 
by a hawthorn Hedge. Here he established his new 
lodger, taking care to give her plenty of rope, and 
from time to time going to see if all was well. The 
goat was very happy, and browsed with such good 
will that Mr. Seguin was enchanted. “ At last,” said 
the poor man to himself, “ I have a goat who will 
not grow ennuye with me.” 


MR. sequin’s goat. 


33 


Mr. Seguin was mistaken. The goat did grow 
ennuye. 

One day she looked up to the mountain, and said 
to herself, 

“ How nice it must be to be up there and play in 
the heather without this accursed tether always chaf- 
ing one’s neck. It is all very well for tlie ox or the 
ass to browse in an enclosure, but goats should roam 
at large.” 

From this time her grass became insipid, she be- 
gan to fall off and gave but little milk. Indeed, it 
was sad to see her pulling all day on her rope, with 
her head turned to the mountain, her nostrils dis- 
tended, whining a melancholy “ M — a !” 

Mr. Seguin saw that something was amiss with his 
goat, but was quite at a loss to guess the cause of it. 
One morning when he had done milking her, she 
turned, and said to him in her patois, 

I am tired of staying here, Mr. Seguin ; let me 
go to the mountain.” 

^^Ah! mon Dieu! this one too!” exclaimed Mr. 
Seguin, stupefied,- and letting fall his pail. Then 
seating himself on the grass by the side of his 
goat, 

“ What, Blanquette, you wish to leave me?” 

‘‘Yes, Mr. Seguin,” answered Blanquette. 

“ Is there not plenty of grass here ?” 

“ Oh yes, Mr. Seguin.” 


3 


34 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


“ Perliaps you are tied too short. Shall 1 lengthen 
your rope 

“ It is not worth while, Mr. Segiiin.” 

Then what is it you want 

“I want to go to the mountain.” 

“ But, poor thing, do you not know there are wolves 
in the mountain ? What will you do when one of 
them finds you 

“ I will fight him with my horns, Mr. Seguin.” 

“The wolf would laugh at your horns. He has 
devoured many a goat with very different horns from 
yours. You know old Renaude that was here last 
year? She was strong and brave, and vicious as a 
he-goat. She fought the wolf all night, and in the 
morning the wolf ate her.” 

“ Poor Renaude ! But let me go to the mountain, 
Mr. Seguin.” 

“Merciful heavens!” said poor Mr. Seguin. 
“What have they done to my goats? But no! I 
will save you in spite of yourself; and for fear you 
should break your rope, I will shut you up in the 
stable, and there you shall remain.” 

Hereupon Mr. Seguin carried his goat to a dark 
stable and double-locked the door. But, unluckily, 
he forgot the window, and no sooner was his back 
turned than the goat was off. 

You smile, Gringoire? Parbleu! I believe you 
take sides with the goat, and against good Mr. Seg- 


MR. SEGUIN’S goat. 


85 


nin. We shall see whether you will smile pres- 
ently. 

When the white goat arrived in the mountain she 
was welcomed with the greatest demonstrations of 
delight. Never had the old pine-trees seen anything 
so pretty. They all received her like a little queen. 
The chestnuts bent down to the ground to caress her 
with their branches, the golden broom opened to let 
her pass, and sent out its sweetest perfume ; the whole 
mountain celebrated her coming. 

You may fancy, Gringoire, whether our goat was 
happy! No more rope, no more stake; she could 
gambol and browse at her pleasure. And what 
grass ! Up to her horns, my dear ; savory, fine, 
dentated, made of a thousand herbs, very different 
indeed from the turf of the enclosure. And the 
fiowers ! Big blue bell-flowers, long-calyxed purple 
foxglove, a whole forest of wild fiowers brimming 
over with intoxicating juices. 

The white goat, fairly surfeited, capered here and 
there, tossing her limbs in the air, rolling along the 
mountain sides pell-mell with the fallen leaves and 
the chestnuts. Then with a sudden bound she is on 
her feet again, and hop ! she is off, with her head 
stuck forward, now on a peak, now in the bottom of 
a ravine, up and down and everywhere. One would 
have supposed there were ten. of Mr. Seguin’s goats 
in the mountain. 


36 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


This is to say that our Blaiiquette was afraid of 
nothing. 

She cleared with a bound the broad, rushing 
streams, getting splashed with mud and foam ; then, 
all dripping, would stretch herself out on a rock, and 
dry herself in the sun. Once, as she came to the 
edge of a plateau with a laburnum in her mouth, 
she saw down below, away down below in the plain, 
the house of Mr. Seguin, with the enclosure in the 
rear. It made her laugh till the tears came. 

What a little place !” she said ; “ how did it ever 
hold me?” 

Poor thing ! seeing herself perched so high, she 
thought herself at least as large as the world. 

To sum up, it was a fine day for Mr. Seguin’s goat. 
About the middle of the day, as she was scampering 
hither and thither, she came in with a fiock of cham- 
ois in the act of munching a wild vine. They in- 
vited her to the best place at the vine, and the gen- 
tlemen were most gallant in their attentions to her. 
It even seemed that a certain young chamois had 
the good -fortune to please Blanquette. The two 
strolled through the woods together for an hour or 
two. If you would know what they said, ask 
the babbling brooks that run invisible in the 
moss. 

Suddenly the wind blew up fresh. The mountains 
began to assume a violet tint; evening was come. 


MR. SEGUIN’s goat. 


37 


“ Already !” said the little goat, and she stopped, 
astonished. 

Below, the fields were flooded with mist. Mi-. 
Seguin’s enclosure was lost to view behind the fog; 
nothing was to be seen but the roof and a curl of 
smoke. She listened to the bells of a flock that was 
being driven home. A falcon grazed her with its 
wings and made her start. Then a long howl was 
heard through the mountain. 

“Houlhour 

She remembered the wolf. All day long she had 
not once thought of him in her mad joy. At the 
same moment a horn sounded in the valley. It was 
Mr. Seguin making a last appeal. 

“ Hoii ! hou !” howled the wolf. 

“ Come home ! come home 1” cried the trumpet. 

For an instant Blanquette thought of returning. 
Then the stake, the rope, and the hedge rose up be- 
fore her; she thought she could never again endure 
such a life, and she concluded that she would better 
remain. 

The horn ceased to blow. 

The goat heard behind her a rustling of leaves. 
She turned, and saw in the shadow two great shining 
eyes. It was the wolf. 

Immense, motionless, seated on his hind quarters, 
be stared at the little white goat, smacking his lips 
in advance. He was in no haste, for he knew he was 


38 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


going to eat her, and as she turned and faced him, 
he laughed maliciously to himself, “ Aha ! Mr. Seg- 
uin’s little goat !” And he licked his lips with his 
great red tongue. 

Blauquette felt herself lost. For a moment, call- 
ing to mind the story of old Benaude, who fought all 
night and was eaten in the morning, she said to her- 
self that she would rather be eaten at once. But she 
thought better of this, and struck an attitude of de- 
fence, -like the brave Mr. Seguin’s goat that she was. 
Not that she had any hope of killing the wolf, but 
only to see if she could hold out as long as Renaude. 

The monster advanced, and the little horns opened 
the dance. 

Ah ! the brave little goat ! More than ten times, 
I assure you, Gringoire, the wolf was forced to draw 
back and take breath. During these brief truces the 
little gourmande would hastily pluck a blade or two 
of her dear grass, and return to the figlit with her 
mouth full. This lasted all night. From time to 
time Mr. Seguin’s goat would look up at the stars 
dancing in the clear sky, and say to herself, 

“If only I can hold out till morning!” 

One by one the stars went out. Blauquette re- 
doubled the thrusts with her horns, the wolf the as- 
saults with his teeth. A pale light appeared on the 
horizon, the shrill crowing of a cock was heard from 
a farm-yard. 


MR. SEGUIN’S goat. 


39 


‘‘ At last !” said poor Blaiiquette, who liad waited 
only for daylight to die; and she stretched herself 
out on the ground, her beautiful fur all stained with 
blood. 

Then the wolf fell upon the little goat and ate her. 

Adieu, Gringoire. 

This story is no invention of my own brain. If 
ever you come to Provence, our farmers will often 
tell you of “la cabro de moussu Seguin que se bat- 
tegud touto la nine emd lou loup e piei lou matin lou 
loup la mange.” * 

You understand me, Gringoire ? “ And in the 

morning the wolf ate her.” 

* Mr. Seguin’s goat, that fought all night with the wolf, and 
in the morning the wolf ate her. 


THE OLD COUPLE. 


A LETTER for me, Pere Azan ? 

“Yes, sir; a letter from Paris.” 

He was very proud, good old Azan, of tins letter 
coming from Paris. Not so was I. Something told 
me that this Parisian, dropping in on me unexpected- 
ly at this early hour, was going to make me lose my 
whole day. I was not mistaken, as will be seen. 

“My dear Friend, — You will do me a favor, will 
you not? You will close your mill and go without 
delay to Eyguieres. Eygui^res is a large village 
three or four leagues from your mill — just a good 
walk. When you arrive there you will inquire for 
the convent of the Orj)helines; the next house to it 
is a low building with gray shutters and a garden in 
the rear. You will enter without knocking — it al- 
ways stands open — and call out, ‘ Good-day to you ; 
I am Maurice’s friend.’ Then you will see two little 
old people — very, very old — archaic — who will hold 
out their arms to you from their arm-chairs, and you 
will embrace them for me as if they were your own. 
You will talk to them, and they will talk to you 


THE OLD COUPLE. 


41 


about i?ie, and will say a thousand foolish things 
which you will listen to without a smile, will you 
not? You will not laugh, will you? They are my ' 
grand-parents ; I am all they have in the world, and 
they have not seen me for ten years. What would 
you have ? Paris keeps me from them, and old age 
keeps them from me. If they were to try to visit me 
they would break their necks. Fortunately you are 
there, my dear miller, and in embracing you these 
poor dears will fancy it is I. I have often spoken to 
them of our friendship — ” 

The deuce take our friendship ! It was a delicious 
morning, but not a favorable one for perambulating • 
the country ; there was too much mistral, too much 
sun, it was a real Proven9al day. When this ac- 
cursed letter arrived I had chosen my cagnard"^ be- 
tween two rocks where I purposed remaining all 
day, drinking sunlight and listening to my pines sing. 
But there was no help for it, so I locked the door, 
put the key in the cat hole, took my stick and pipe, 
and set ofP. 

I reached Eyguieres about two o’clock. The town 
was deserted; the inhabitants were all in the coun- 
try. The cicadas were singing in full chorus in the 
dust-covered elms of the public walk, an ass was sun- 


* Shelter. 


42 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


ning itself in the square of the town-hall, and a flight 
of pigeons at the fountain before the church, but I 
saw no one of whom I might inquire for the Orphan- 
age. Fortunately an old fairy suddenly appeared 
before me, squatting in her door-way with her spin- 
ning-wheel. I told her what I wanted, and as she 
was an all-powerful fairy she had only to raise her 
distaff and the convent of the Orphelines stood be- 
fore me. It was a large, gloorny-looking building, 
very proud of showing an old red sandstone cross 
with a few Latin words around it, over its ogive gate. 
Next to it I saw another smaller house, with gray 
shutters and a garden in the rear. Recognizing it at 
once I entered. 

Never while I live shall I forget the long, quiet, 
cool corridor, the rose-colored walls, the garden that 
twinkled in the rear through thin blinds, the baskets 
of flowers, and the faded violins. Through an open 
door at one end of the corridor I heard the loud 
ticking of a clock, and a child’s voice, reading, and 
pausing at each syllable : Then — Saint — I-rende — 
cried — I — am — the — cheese — of — the — Lord — I — 
must — be — de-voured — by — the — teeth — of — these 
— an-i-mals.” I walked softly to the door and look- 
ed in. 

In the still subdued light of a small chamber a 
little old man with red cheek-bones and wrinkled to 
his finger tips was asleep in an arm-chair with his 


THE OLD COUPLE. 


43 


month open, and his hands resting on his knees, and 
at his feet sat a little girl in blue, a large pelerine 
and little beqnine cap, the uniform of the Orphelines, 
reading the life of Saint Iren^e out of a book bigger 
than herself. The reading of this book of miracles 
had wrong! it its effect on the whole house. The old 
man had fallen asleep in his chair, the flies on the 
ceiling, the canaries in their cage on the window. 
The big clock snored tic-tac, tic-tac; nothing was 
awake in the room but a single line of light. Which 
fell straight and white between the closed shutters 
full of living sparkles and microscopic waltzes. In 
the midst of the general somnolence the child con- 
tinued in a grave voice: Im-me-di-ate-ly — two — 
lions — fell — up-on — him — and — ate — him.” At this 
moment I entered. 

The sudden appearance in person of Saint Irende’s 
lions could not have occasioned greater stupefaction. 
It was a veritable coup de theatre. The little girl 
cried out and let fall the big book, the canaries and 
flies woke up, the clock struck, the old man started 
to his feet, whilst I, a trifle agitated, stopped half 
way, and said, “ Good-morning, sir ; I am Maurice’s 
friend.” 

You should have seen him then, poor old man. 
You should have seen him come towards me with 
outstretched hands, take my hands and press them, 
and then walk up and down the room in agitation. 


44 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


Mon Dieu ! mon Dieu! every wrinkle in his face 
was a smile. He grew red, and stammered, “ Ah ! sir 
— ah ! sir — ” and then going to the other end of the 
room called, “ Mamette !” 

There was the sound of a door opening and a little 
mouse patter along the corridor, and Mamette ap- 
peared. There was nothing pretty, certainly, in the 
old woman with her egg-shaped cap, Carmelite gown, 
and the embroidered kerchief which she held in her 
hand after the ancient fashion, in honor of me. It 
was touching to see how the two resembled each 
other. With her cap on he could have answei-ed 
himself to the name of Mamette, only the real Ma- 
mette must have shed many a tear in the course of 
her life, and was even more wrinkled than the other. 
Like the other, also, she had with her one of the 
children of the Orphanage, a little nurse in a blue 
pelerine who never quitted her side, and there could 
not be a more touching sight than that of these two 
old people guarded by these children. 

When Mamette entered the room she began by 
making me a low courtesy, but with a word the old 
man cut her bow in half. “ This is Maurice’s friend.” 
At this she trembled and wept, dropped her hand- 
kerchief, and grew red in the face, even redder than 
he. These old people had only a drop of blood in 
their veins, and the least emotion sent it rushing to 
their cheeks. ‘‘Quick! quick! a chair!” said the 


THE OLD COUPLE. 


45 


old woman to lier little oq^han. “ Open the shut- 
ters!” cried the old man to his. And each taking 
one of my liands they led me in a little trot to the 
window to take a good look at me. Then their arm- 
chairs were drawn up, and I seated myself on a camp- 
stool ; the little blues stationed themselves behind us 
and the interrogation began. 

“ How is he ? What is he doing ? Why doesn’t 
lie come to see us? Is he in good spirits?” and so 
forth, and so on, for hours. 

I answ’ered all their questions to the best of my 
ability, giving such details as I knew respecting my 
friend, inventing without scruple what I did not 
know, careful not to admit that I had never observed 
whether his windows fastened securely, nor the color 
of his wall-paper. 

^‘It is blue, madam, light blue with flowers over 
it.” 

Keally !” said the old woman, much affected, and 
turning to her husband, added, 

“ What a good child he is 1” 

“ Oh yes, a good child,” repeated the other, with 
enthusiasm. And all the while 1 was talking, there 
were little noddings of their heads, knowing little 
lauerhs, or the old man would draw closer to me and 

o / 

say, “ Speak louder ; she is a little deaf ;” then from 
her side, ‘‘ A little louder, if you please ; he doesn’t 
hear very well.” I would raise my voice, and both 


46 


STORIES OF fROVENCTE. 


would thank me with a smile; and in these faded 
smiles, which leaned towards me, searching in the 
depths of my eyes for the image of their Maurice, 
I was moved to discover that image myself, vague, 
shadowy, undefinable, as if I saw my friend smile 
to me from afar through a mist. 

Suddenly the old man raised himself in his chair. 

“Now I think of it, Mamette, perhaps he has not 
breakfasted.” 

Mamette threw up her hands in dismay. “Not 
breakfasted ! Great heavens !” 

I thought the question was still one of Maurice, 
and was about to assure them that this good child 
never sat down to table later than twelve. But no, 
it was of myself they were speaking this time, and 
you should have seen the commotion when I con- 
fessed that I had not yet eaten anything. 

“ Set the table quick, little blues, in the middle 
of the room — the best cloth and the flowered nap- 
kins. And don’t laugh so, if you please, but make 
haste.” 

And they did make haste. In less time than need- 
ed for the breaking of three plates the breakfast was 
served. 

“ A nice little breakfast,” said Mamette, as she con- 
ducted me to the table, “only you will have to eat 
alone ; we have already breakfasted.” 

Mamette’s “nice little breakfast” consisted of a 


THE OLD COUPLE. 


47 


few drops of milk, some dates, and a harqioette * — 
enough to feed her and her canaries for at least a 
week. ’And to think that I should at once and with- 
out any assistance have consumed all this vast store 
of provision ! The little blues whispered together 
and nudged each other’s elbows, and the very ca- 
naries in their cage seemed to be chirping, “Only 
look at that monsieur! he is eating the whole har- 
quette ! ” 

I did eat it all, in truth, and almost unconscious 
that I did so, absorbed as I was in looking round on 
the bright, quiet little room about which floated, as 
it were, a perfume of ancient things. In particular, 
there were two little beds off which I could not take 
my eyes. They were scarcely more than two cradles, 
and I pictured them to myself in the early morning 
while still shrouded with their fringed curtains. The 
clock strikes three, the hour when the pair are accus- 
tomed to awake. 

“ Are you asleep, Mamette ?” 

“No, dear.” 

“ Isn’t Maurice a good child ?” 

“ Oh yes, an excellent child.” 

Then I heard, in imagination, the prolonged con- 
versation that would ensue, all conjured up by the 
sight of these two little beds standing side by side. 


* A kind of cake. 


48 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


Meanwhile a terrible tragedy was enacting in front 
of the closet at the other end of the room. They 
wanted to get at a jar of brandy cherries which had 
been on the top shelf for ten years awaiting the visit 
of Maurice, and which they had decided to open for 
me. The old man had insisted on getting them down 
himself, and had climbed upon a chair, in spite of the 
timid remonstrances of his wife. Picture the scene 
for yourself — the old man tremblingly reaching up, 
the little blues holding to his chair, Mamette stand- 
ing behind with outstretched arms, panting with ter- 
ror, and a faint scent of bergamot wafted over them 
all from the open closet and piles of linen. It was 
charming. 

At last, after much ado, they succeeded in reach- 
ing the famous jar, and with it a silver cup which 
Maurice had used when a child. They filled it to 
the brim with cherries — Maurice was so fond of these 
cherries ! — and as they handed it to me the old man 
said in my ear, “ My wife made them ; you will have 
a taste of something nice.” 

Alas ! his wife had made them, and she had for- 
gotten the sugar ! — one grows forgetful as one grows 
old. Poor Mamette’s chenles were atrocious, but I 
swallowed the last one, and that without wincing. 

The repast ended, 1 rose to bid adieu to my hosts. 
They would fain have detained me to talk a little 
longer about the dear child ; but it was late, I was a 


THE OLD COUPLE. 


49 


long way from my mill, and was forced to take my 
leave of them. 

As I rose, the old man did so also. “ My coat, Ma- 
mette ; I will accompany him to the square.” 1 felt 
sure that at heart Mamette thought it had grown too 
cool for him to accompany me, but she was too po- 
lite to let it appear. Only while assisting him to put 
his arms into his coat-sleeves — a fine Spanish smok- 
ing-coat with mother-of-pearl buttons — I heard the 
dear creature say in an undertone, “You will not 
stay late, will you and he answered, mischievously, 
“ I don’t know — perhaps.” Then they looked at each 
other and laughed, and the little blues laughed to see 
them laugh, and the canaries in their cage laughed 
too in their way. Between ourselves, I believe the 
odor of the cherries liad a trifie intoxicated them all. 

Night was falling as the grandfather and I quitted 
the house. His little blue followed at a distance to 
bring him back, but he did not see her, and was 
very proud of walking at my side like a man. Ma- 
mette, radiant, watched us from the door-step, say- 
ing to herself, with pretty little nods, 

“My old man is just the same as ever.” 

4 


THE EEVEKEND FATHER GAUCHER’S 
ELIXIR. 


Drink this, neighbor ; you will tell me news.” 

And drop by drop, with the scrupulous care of a 
lapidary counting his pearls, the Cure of Graveson 
poured out for me a little of a green, golden, warm, 
sparkling, exquisite liquid. It made my stomach all 
sunshine. 

“This is Father Gaucher’s elixir, the joy and health 
of our Provence,” said the good man, with an air 
of triumph. “ It is manufactured at the Monastery 
of the Premontres, two leagues from your mill. Is 
it not worth all the Chartreuse in the world ? And 
if you knew the history of this elixir ! Listen, while 
I tell it you.” 

Then very simply, without any intent of malice 
on his part, the abb^ began for me in the vicarage 
dining-room, so pure and calm, with its little pict- 
ures of the “ Stations of the Cross,” and the pretty 
light curtains starched like surplices, the following 
narrative, a trifle irreverent, it must be owned, some- 
what in the style of Erasmus or D’ Assoucy : 

Twenty years ago the Pr^montrds, or, rather, the 


FATHER GAUCHER’s ELIXIR. 51 

White Fathers, as oiir Provencals call them, had 
sunk into a condition of such abject poverty that 
it would have gone to your heart could you have 
seen their house at that time. The great wall and 
the Pacome tower were crumbling to pieces; all 
around the cloister the place was overgrown wdth 
weeds ; the colonettes were cracking ; the stone saints 
tottering in their niches ; the wind from the Phone 
whistled through the chapels, blowing out the can- 
dles, breaking the lead of the windows, and dashing 
the holy water out of the fonts. But saddest of all, 
the bell-tower was silent as a deserted pigeon-house ; 
they had no money to buy a bell, and the fathers had 
to ring for matins with snappers of almond- wood. 

Poor White Fathers! I see them yet in the pro- 
cession of the Fete-Dieu, walking dejectedly along 
in their patched capes, pale and cadaverous (their 
only food was lemons and watermelons), monseign- 
eur the abbe bringing up the rear with bowed 
head, ashamed to hold up to the light the worn gild- 
ing of his cross and his moth-eaten white woollen 
mitre; the women belonging to the sisterhood weep- 
ing for pity, while the banner-bearers whispered one 
to the other, “A flock of lean starlings!” In fact 
it had come at last to this, that the unfortunate 
White Fathers were debating among themselves 
whether they would not do better to disperse and 
seek each a separate pasture. 


52 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


On a certain day, while this grave question was 
being discussed in the chapter, it was announced that 
Brother Gaucher requested to be heard in the coun- 
cil. This Brother Gaucher, I must explain, was the 
neat-herd of the monastery — that is to say, he passed 
his time moving from gallery to gallery with two 
emaciated cows in search of the grass growing be- 
tween the bricks. Brought up by an old woman of 
Beaux, and received into the monastery at the age 
of twelve years, he had had little opportunity to ac- 
quire any other learning than how to drive his cows 
and recite his Paternoster; and this last he did in 
Provencal, for he had as keen a head and sharp a 
wit as a leaden dagger. A zealous Christian withal, 
albeit a trifle visionary, at home in his hair-cloth, and 
administering discipline to himself with a robust 
conviction and good arms. 

When they saw him enter the hall of the chapter, 
simple and uncouth, dropping his knees to salute the 
assembly, they all — prior, canons, and treasurer — 
began to laugh. He was accustomed to produce 
this effect, with his simpleton face, staring eyes, and 
goatee, therefore he was not disconcerted. 

“ Your reverences,” he said, with his accustomed 
bonhomie^ twisting his olive-nut rosary in his fingers, 
it is a true saying that empty casks make the best 
music. By dint of digging into my hollow cranium 
I have found the way out of our troubles. 


FATHER GAUCHER^S ELIXIR. 


53 


“ You recollect Aunt Begon, the good woman that 
brought me up — God rest her soul ! she would sing 
queer songs when she had been drinking — well, rev- 
erend fathers, Aunt Begon knew all the herbs in 
these mountains better than an old Corsican black- 
bird, and in the latter part of her life learned to 
make a wonderful elixir bj mixing five or six sim- 
ples which we would gather together in the mount- 
ains. That was a long while ago ; but I believe, 
with the help of Saint Augustine and the permission 
of our good father abbe, I shall be able to recall 
the inofredients of this wonderful elixir. We should 
then simply have to bottle and sell it for our com- 
munity to grow rich like our brothers of La Trappe 
and La Grande — ” 

He was not allowed to finish. The prior sprang 
up and clasped him in his arms ; the canons pressed 
his hands ; the treasurer, even more deeply moved 
than the rest, kissed with reverence the torn fringe 
of his cucule. Then all returned to their seats to 
deliberate, and before the meeting adjourned it was 
resolved by the chapter that the charge of the cows 
should be transferred to Brother Thrasybule, in order 
to permit Brother Gaucher to devote his whole time 
to the concocting of the elixir. 

How the good brother succeeded at last in re- 
covering Aunt Begon’s recipe — at the price of what 
labors and vigils — the chronicle does not record. 


54 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


What is certain is, that at the end of six months 
the elixir of the White Fathers had already won a 
considerable reputation. Through all the neighbor- 
ing country of Arles there was not a farm-house but 
had stored away among the bottles of old wine and 
jars of olives a little clay flask sealed with the arms 
of Provence, with the trade-mark of a monk in ec- 
stasy upon a silver label. Thanks to the popularity 
of this elixir, the Pr^montres grew rapidly rich. The 
Pacome tower was rebuilt, the prior had a new mitre, 
the church windows handsome new glasses, and one 
flne Easter day a whole company of bells began cara- 
coling with all their might. 

As for Brother Gaucher — the poor lay brother 
whose clownishness had furnislied subject of merri- 
ment for all the chapter — there was now no such 
person. There was the Keverend Father Gaucher, 
a man of great parts and learning, who lived with- 
drawn from the trivial occupations of the cloister, 
shut up in his distillery, while thirty monks scoured 
the mountains for the sweet-scented herbs. This 
distillery, which not even the prior had the right to 
enter, was an old abandoned chapel at the end of 
the canon’s garden. The good fathers, in their sim- 
plicity, had invested the place with a strange and 
terrible mystery, and if perchance some over-bold 
and curious monk ventured so far as the door, he 
quickly drew back, terrified at the sight of Father 


FATHER GAUCHEK’S ELIXIR. 


55 


Gaucher, with his wizard -like beard, bending over 
his furnaces with his hydrometer, and the red sand- 
stone' retorts, the gigantic alembics, the crystal ser- 
pentine stones, and all the numberless weird things 
that flamed up necromantically in the red light from 
the stained windows. 

At sunset, when the last Angelus sounded, the door 
of this mysterious place would open softly, and the 
reverend father would wend his way to church for 
the evening oflice. What a reception he had in pass- 
ing through the monastery! The brothers stood 
aside in rows to make way for him to pass, whisper- 
ing together, “Hush-sh — he has the secret!” The 
treasurer followed, and conversed with him, his head 
bowed humbly. And in the midst of all this adula- 
tion, the father, with his broad-brimmed tricorner 
set back on his head like an aureola, as he wiped 
the drops from his brow, would look around with 
complaisance on the spacious courts planted with 
oranges; the blue roofs, with their new weather- 
cocks ; the monastery, sparkling white between ele- 
gant carved colonettes; and the monks, in their 
new vestments, defiling tranquilly along two by 
two. 

“ It is to me they owe all this,” said the reverend 
father to himself ; and whenever the thought entered 
his mind his bosom swelled with pride. 

You shall see how the poor man was punished. 


56 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


One evening he arrived during the office, red and 
panting, his cowl all awry, and so confused that he 
dipped his sleeves in the holy water up to the elbows. 
At first it was thought his agitation was caused by his 
being late ; but when they saw him bow low to the 
organ instead of the high altar, cross the church like 
a gust of wind and wander about the choir for five 
minutes unable to find his seat, and, when seated, bow 
to right and left in a beatified manner, a murmur of 
astonishment ran through the three naves. “ What 
is the matter with Father Gaucher?” “ What is the 
matter with Father Gaucher ?” was whispered from 
breviary to breviary. Twice the prior, impatient, let 
fall his cross on the fiagging to command silence. 
The chanting still went on in the choir, but the re- 
sponses were faint. 

Suddenly, in the midst of the Ave Verum, Father 
Gaucher turned completely around in his seat and 
intoned, in a thundering voice, 

“There was a White Father in Paris. Patatan, 
patatan, taraban, taraban,” etc. 

The consternation was universal. Every one rose. 
“ Carry him out ! he is possessed !” The monks 
crossed themselves ; monseigneur’s cross fairly ran 
/inad. But Father Gaucher saw and heard nothing, 
till at last two able bodied monks were compelled 
to drag him out by the little door of the choir, 
writhing like one possessed of a devil, and continu- 


FATHER GAUCHER’s ELIXIR. 


57 


ing his “ Patataii, patatan, taraban, taraban,” at the 
top of his lungs. 

The next morning at daybreak the poor man was 
on his knees in the prior’s oratory making his confes- 
sion with a river of tears. “ It was the elixir, mon- 
seigneur, the elixir surprised me,” he said, beating 
his breast. And seeing the poor man so grieved and 
penitent, the good prior was deeply moved. 

“Come, come. Father Gaucher, calm yourself. 
All this will pass away like dew in the sunshine. 
The song, it is true, was rather — ahem ! it is to be 
hoped the novices didn’t hear it. Tell us exactly 
how it happened. It was testing the elixir, was it 
not ? Like Schwartz, the inventor of gunpowder, 
you are the victim of your invention. And listen, 
friend, is it absolutely indispensable that you should 
try this terrible elixir yourself ?” 

“ Unfortunately, yes, monseigneur, the gauge gives 
me the strength and quantity of the alcohol, but 
for the finish, the fiavor, I can trust only my 
tongue.” 

“ Ah ! very well ; but when you are compelled to 
taste the elixir do you find it good ? does it give you 
pleasure ?” 

“ Alas ! yes, monseigneur,” said the poor father, 
growing very red ; “ for two evenings I have discov- 
ered in it a relish, an aroma — surely the devil him- 
self must have played me this trick. But I am re- 


58 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


solved hereafter to use only the gauge, so much the 
worse if the liquor is less exquisite — ” 

“Ko, no, that is not to be thought of,” interrupted 
the prior; “we must run no risk of displeasing our 
customers. Now that you are forewarned, all you 
want is to be on your guard. Let us see — how much 
do you require in making your tests ? Fifteen drops ? 
twenty ? — say twenty drops ; the devil will be very 
sharp indeed if he catches you with twenty drops. 
Moreover, to provide against accident, you are hence- 
forth dispensed from attending church ; you will say 
the evening office in the distillery. And now go in 
peace, and remember to count carefully your drops.” 

But alas ! it was to no purpose that the poor father 
counted his drops. The devil had him and would 
not let him go. 

Strange offices were they that the distillery heard ! 

During the day all went well. The father, calm 
and collected, prepared his chafing-dishes and alem- 
bics, sorted carefully his herbs — all Provengal herbs, 
fine gray, dentated, penetrated with perfume and sun- 
shine. But in the evening, when the simples were 
infused and the elixir cooling in the large copper ba- 
sins — then it was that the poor man’s torments began. 

The drops fell from the tube into the ruddy gob- 
let — seventeen — eighteen — nineteen — twenty. These 
twenty drops the father swallowed at a draught, and 
experienced little or no pleasure in them; it was 


FATHER GAUCHEr’s ELIXIR. 


59 


only the twenty-first that excited his craving. Oh ! 
that twenty-first drop ! Flying from the temptation 
he rushed to the farthest end of the laboratory, fell 
on his knees, and plunged into his Paternosters. But 
from the still steaming liquor arose a vapor charged 
with aromatics that came over and hovered about 
him, and, in spite of himself, drew him back to the 
basins. Bending with dilated nostrils over the beau- 
ful golden-green liquid, tlie father touched it gently 
with his tube, and in the little sparkling spangles 
of the emerald stream fancied he saw Aunt B^gon’s 
eyes laughing and glittering at him. 

“ Come ! just, one more drop !’’ And drop by drop 
the poor man ended by filling his goblet to the brim, 
and then, quite faint, sank into an arm-chair and 
sipped his sin, repeating to himself with delicious 
remorse, “ Ah ! I am damning myself — damning my- 
self !” The most dreadful of all was that at the bot- 
tom of this diabolical elixir, by some strange sorcery, 
he found all Aunt Bdgon’s abominable old songs, 
‘‘Three Little Gadabouts holding a Feast,” or “Mai- 
tre Andre’s Shepherdess goes to the Woods,” and 
always the famous White Fathers, and the refrain, 
“ Patatan, patatan, taraban, taraban,” etc. 

Fancy his confusion when, from the neighboring 
cells, they came to him next morning, and said, ma- 
liciously, 

“ He ! he ! Father Gaucher, the cicadas must have 


60 


STOKIES OF PROVENCE. 


got into jour head when you went to bed last 
night.” 

Then followed tears and despair, and fasting and 
hair- cloth and penance; but they had no power 
against the demon of the elixir, and evening after 
evening, at the same hour, the devil had him again. 

Meanwhile benedictions showered themselves upon 
the abbey in the form of orders. They came from 
Nimes, Aix, Avignon, and Marseilles. Every day the 
monastery assumed more and more the appearance 
of a manufactory. There were the brothers for pack- 
ing, brothers for docketing, brothers for sorting, and 
brothers for carting. There was less ringing of bells, 
but the country people around lost nothing, you may 
rest assured. 

But one Sunday morning while the treasurer was 
reading in a full meeting of the chapter his report 
for the end of the year, and the good canons were 
listening to him with glistening eyes and a smile on 
theii: lips. Father Gaucher suddenly rushed into the 
midst of the conference. 

“ It is all over ; I can do no more. Give me back 
my cows.” 

“What is the matter, Father Gaucher?” asked the 
prior, with a secret misgiving of what the matter 
was. 

“ The matter, monseigneur ? The matter is that I 
am preparing for myself an eternity of flames and 


FATHER Gaucher’s elixir. 61 

pitchforks. The matter is that I drink and drink 
like any wretch — ” 

“ But I told you to count your drops.” 

“ Ah, yes ! count my drops, but it is by goblets I 
count now. Yes, reverend fatlier, I have come to 
this — three bottles an evening. You understand tliat 
this cannot go on. Have the elixir made by whom 
you will, may the fire of hell take me if I meddle 
with it again !” 

There was no smiling in the chapter now. 

‘^But, unfortunate man, you would ruin us!” ex- 
claimed the treasurer, sliaking liis great book. 

“Would you sooner have me damn myself?” 

Then the prior rose. 

“ Beverend brothers,” ho said, extending his white 
hand on which the pastoral ring glistened, “ all this 
can be arranged. It is in the evening, is it not, my 
son, that the devil tempts you ?” 

“ Yes, monseigneur prior, regularly every evening. 
When night draws on I begin to feel — saving your 
presence — like Capitou’s ass at sight of the pack- 
saddle.” 

“ Well, re-assure 3murself. Henceforth every even- 
ing at the office we will say on ^mur behalf the ori- 
son of Saint Augustine, to which plenary indulgence 
is attached. It will be absolution in the midst of 
the sin.” 

“ Thank you ! oh, thank you, monseigneur prior.” 


62 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


And Father Gaucher returned to his alembics as 
light as a lark. 

And, in fact, from this day the officiating priest 
never failed to add, every evening, at the close of the 
office, “ Let us pray for our poor brother Gaucher, 
who imperils his soul in the interests of the order. 
Oremus Domine — ” 

And while all the white cowls were prostrating 
themselves in the shadows of the naves, and the ori- 
son floated over them like a gentle northerly breeze 
over the snow, at the other end of the monasteiy, 
behind the flaming windows of the distillery. Father 
Gaucher’s voice could have been heard singing, 

“In Paris there was a White Father, 

Patatan, patatan, taraban, taraban; 

In Paris there was a White Father 
Who made the little nuns dance, 

Tran tran tran, tran tran tran in a garden. 

Who made the little nuns — ” 

Here the good father stopped short in terror. 
“ Mercy ! what if my parishioners should hear me 1” 


THE WOMAN OF AKLES. 


In going from my mill to tlie village you pass by 
a farm-house which stands near the road-side, in the 
middle of a large yard planted with nettle-trees. It 
is a true type of the Proven9al farm-house, with its 
red tilings, broad fa§ade, irregular windows, gran- 
ary surmounted with a weather - cock, mill-wheel, 
and the tufts of hay peeping out. 

What was there about this house that so im- 
pressed me? why did its ever closed door affect 
me so painfully? An oppressive silence seemed to 
reign there. The dogs never barked as you passed, 
the guinea-fowls scampered off without uttering a 
cry. Not a voice was heard from within, not the 
tinkle of a mule-bell in the yard. But for the white 
curtains at the windows, and the smoke rising from 
the roof, one would have supposed the place unin- 
habited. 

Beturning from the village one day, I kept close 
in the shadow of the wall, to shelter myself from the 
sun’s burning heat. Some men were silently filling 
a wagon with hay in front of the farm-yard. The 
gate was standing open, and I saw at the other end 


64 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


of the yard a gray-haired old man (with his vest too 
short and clothes all in tatters) seated at a large 
stone table, his head buried in his hands. I. stopped. 
One of the men said to me, in an undertone, 
“Hush-sh — there is the master. He has been like 
that ever since his son’s misfortune.” 

At the same moment a woman, accompanied hy 
a little boy dressed in black, passed us, with large 
gilt missals in their hands, and entered the gate. 

“ That is the mistress, returning with Cadet from 
mass. They go every day since the lad killed him- 
self. The father always wears his dead boy’s 
clothes, and can’t be prevailed on to leave them off. 
Dia hue ! beast !” 

The wagon staggered, beginning to move off. 
Wishing to hear more, I requested the driver’s per- 
mission to mount; and it was there, seated in the 
wagon on the hay, that I listened to the following 
heart-rending tale : 

His name was Jan. He was an excellent young 
fellow of twenty, modest, and good as a girl, with a 
frank, open face, handsome, too, and a favorite with 
the women, though he never seemed to care for but 
one, and she was a little woman of Arles, dressed in 
velvet and lace, whom he met there one day in the 
tilt-yard. His parents were not very well pleased 
with the affair — the girl was said to be a coquette, 


65 


% 

THE WOMAN OF ARLES. 

and her people were strangers. But Jan’s heart was 
set on his Arlesienne, and at last they gave way, and 
the marriage was to take place after harvest. 

One Sunday the family were just finishing dinner 
in the yard; it had been almost a wedding -feast; 
the girl was not present, but they had been drinking 
her health all the time. A man appeared in tlie 
gate, and in a trembling voice asked permission to 
speak to M. Esteve alone. Esteve rose and went 
to him. 

“Sir,” said the maOj “you are about to marry 
your son to a wench wiio has been my mistress for 
two years. Here are letters which will prove that 
wliat I sa}^ is true. Her parents know it, and had 
promised her to me; but since your son has been 
paying court to her they have shaken me off; but 
I suppose after this she can hardly be another man’s 
wife.” 

“Very well,” said M. Esteve, after looking at the 
letters. “ Come in and take a glass of muscat with 
us.’’ 

“ Ho, thank you. I am more sad than thirsty.” 
And the man departed. 

The father returned, resumed quietly his seat at 
the table, and the meal ended cheerfully. That 
evening the father and son took a long walk to- 
gether, and when they returned, M. Esteve led Jan 
to his mother, saying. 


6 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


“ Comfort him, he is unhappy.” 

Jan ceased to speak of the Arlesienne, though he 
still loved her — indeed, more than ever. But he 
kept it all to himself, and it was that that killed 
him, poor boy. Sometimes he would spend whole 
days moping in a corner; then he would suddenly 
rouse liirnself and do the work of ten hands. When 
evening came he would set out on the road to Arles, 
and walk till he saw the steeple of the village church 
against the sky; then he would return. He never 
went farther. 

Seeing him always sad and solitary, his parents 
were at a loss what to do ; they dreaded some catas- 
trophe. At last, one day at table, his mother said to 
him, with tears in her eyes, 

“ Listen, Jan, if you love her in spite of all, take 
her.” 

The father’s face criiTisoned, and he dropped his 
eyes. Jan shook his head and left the room. 

From this day a change came over him. He went 
to balls and races, and appeared always in good 
spirits. His father said to himself, “ He is cured ;” 
but his mother had misgivings, and watched him 
more anxiously than ever. He slept with Cadet 
near the silk- worm nursery, and she had her bed 
moved so as to be near their chamber. The silk- 
worms miglit have need of her in the niglit ! 

Saint Eloi’s day came — the farmer’s patron saint. 


THE WOMAN OF ARLES. 


67 


There was meiTj’-nmking — fireworks, colored lan- 
terns, chateauiienf for all — the old wine flowed like 
water. Yive Saint Eloi! They danced the faran- 
dole madly, and Jan seemed cheerful and gay; he 
tried to induce his mother to join in the dance. The 
poor woman wept for joy. 

They went to bed at midnight, sleepy and worn 
out, but Jan did not sleep. Cadet said he sobbed 
all night. Ah! he was badly cut up, poor lad, I 
warrant you 1 

The next day at sunrise his mother heard some 
one hurry through her chamber. A presentiment 
seized her. ‘‘Is that you, Jan?” Jan did not an- 
swer. He had already reached the stairs. His 
mother rose, quick — quick — and followed him up 
the steps. * “My son, for Heaven’s sake!” He shut 
the door behind him and locked it. 

“Jan — my Janet — answer me! what are you 
doing?” 

She felt for the latch with her old, trembling 
fingers. She heard the sound of a window opening, 
and of something heavy falling on the stones, and 
that was all. 

It was all over, poor boy. “ I love her too much ; 
I am going — ” Ah ! miserable hearts of ours, strange 
it is that contempt cannot conquer love ! 

That morning the village people wondered who 


68 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


it was they heard sobbing so in M. Esteve’s yard as 
they passed. 

It was the mother, who, all undressed, sat by a 
stone table wet with dew and blood, and wept as she 
pressed her dead boy in her arms. 


N 


BALLADS IN PEOSE. 

When I opened my door this morning, I found a 
large carpet of ice spi-ead all around ray mill. The 
grass sparkled and snapped like so much glass, the 
whole hill shivered ; for a day my dear Provence 
put on the mask of a northern country. And it was 
in the midst of pine-trees fringed with hoar-frost, 
and tufts of lavender bloomed out into crystal bou- 
quets, that I wrote these two ballads, a trifle German 
in conceit, with the frost sending white sparkles 
about n;e, and above me in the clear atmosphere 
three triangular masses of storks descending towards 
Camargue from the country of Heinricli Heine, and 
screaming as they flew, “ It is cold — cold — cold !” 

I.— THE DEATH OF THE DAUPHIN. 

The little Dauphin is ill — the Dauphin is going 
to die. In all the churches the Host is elevated and 
tall candles burn for the recovery of the royal child. 
The streets of the ancient residence are sad and si- 
lent, the bells are mute, citizens peer curiously througli 
the palace gratings, porters talk in solemn tones in 
the courts. 


70 


STOKIES OF PROVENCE. 


All the palace is astir. Chamberlains and major- 
domos hurry up and down the marble steps; the 
galleries are thronged with pages ; courtiers in silken 
robes pass from group to group, asking the news in 
smothered accents. On the broad stairways weep- 
ing maids of honor bow low, and wipe their eyes with 
beautiful embroidered kerchiefs. 

An assemblage of robed doctors gathers in the 
01‘angery. Through the glasses they can be seen 
waving their long black sleeves and inclining doctor- 
ally their perukes. Before the door walk the tutor 
and riding-master of the little Dauphin. They are 
waiting for the decisions of the faculty. The riding- 
master swears like a trooper, the tutor quotes Horace. 
From the stable comes a long, plaintive neigh. It is 
the little Dauphin’s chestnut, who, forgotten by the 
grooms, calls sadly from his empty crib. 

And the king — where is the king? Shut up all 
alone at the farther end of the palace. Kings must 
not be seen to weep. Not so, however, the queen. 
Seated by the Dauphin’s side, her lovely face all 
bathed in tears, she sobs before us all like the veriest 
serving- woman. 

In his lace bed lies the little Dauphin. He is 
whiter than the pillow upon which his head reclines. 
They believe that he is asleep; but no, he is not 
asleep. The little Dauphin turns to his mother. 
‘‘Madam the queen, why do you weep? Do you be- 


BALLADS IN PROSE. 71 

lieve, like the rest, that I am going to die?” The 
queen tries to answer ; sobs choke her utterance. 

“ Do not weep, madame the queen. You forget 
that I am the Dauphin ; Dauphins do not die thus.” 
The queen sobs more piteously. The little Dauphin is 
frightened. “ Halloo !” exclaims he, “ I do not want 
to die! Order instantly forty stout lansquenets to 
keep guard around our bed. Set a hundred large 
guns to watch night and day before our windows. 
And woe to Death should he dare approach us !” 

To humor the royal child the queen makes a sign. 
In a twinkling, cannon are heard rolling in the 
court; forty stout lansquenets with their partisans 
range themselves around the room. They are old 
troopers and their mustaches are gray. The Dau- 
phin recognizes one. “ Lorrain !” he cries. The old 
soldier draws closer. “ Let me look at your big sword. 
If Death comes for me you will kill him, will you 
not ?” “ Yes, monseigneur.” And two big tears roll 
down his tanned cheeks. 

The priest approaches the Dauphin. He speaks 
long in subdued tones and holds up the crucifix. The 
Dauphin shows surprise. Suddenly he interrupts him. 
“ I see what you mean, monsieur the abbd ; but would 
not my little friend Beppo die in my place if we 
pay him plenty of money ?” The priest continues to 
speak. The Dauphin looks more and more surprised. 
When the priest ceases, he says, with a sigh, All 


72 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


that is very sad, monsieur the abbe, but there is one 
comfort for me. When I get to the paradise of the 
stars I shall still be the Dauphin. The good God is 
my cousin, and will treat me according to my rank.’’ 

Then he turned to his mother, and said, “ Let them 
bring my best clothes — the ermine doublet and vel- 
vet pumps. I want to make myself smart for the 
angels, and enter paradise dressed like the Dauphin.” 
Again the priest bends over the Dauphin, and speaks 
to him in low tones. In the midst of the discourse 
the royal child interrupts him angrily: “What! 'it is 
nothing, then, to be a Dauphin, after all !’’ and re- 
fusing to hear more, he turns his head to the wall 
and weeps bitterly. 

II.— THE SUB-PREFECT IN THE COUNTRY. 

The sub-prefect is making his rounds. Coachman 
before and postilions behind, the calash of the sub- 
prefect is bearing him majestically to the district 
meeting in the Yalley-of-the-Fays. He has donned 
upon this special day his embroidered coat, dress 
hat, trousers with silver bands, and full-dress, peail- 
handled sword. On his cap is a large embossed 
shagreen case at which he gazes gloomily. 

The sub-})refect gazes gloomily at his large sha- 
green case. He thinks of the discourse presenth^ to 
be delivered before the inhabitants of the Yallej’-of- 
the-Fays. “Dear friends and citizens — ” But he 


BALLADS IN PROSE. 


73 


twirls in vain the silken ends of his hVlit whiskers, 
and repeats twenty times in vain, “Dear friends 
and citizens — ” The rest of tlie discourse will not 
come. 

The rest of the discourse will not come. It is so 
warm in this calash ! Far as the eye can reach, the 
road to the Yalley-of-the-Fays is turning to dust in 
the noonday sun. On the elms by the way-side, 
white with dust, millions of cicadas are conversing 
from tree to tree. Suddenly the sub-prefect starts. 
The little oak wood at the foot of the hillock has 
beckoned to him. 

The little oak wood has beckoned to him: “Mon- 
sieur the sub-prefect, come this way to compose your 
discourse; you will be better here beneath my 
branches.” The sub- prefect is seduced. He leaps 
from his calash, he says to his attendants that he is 
going to compose his discourse in the little oak 
wood. 

In the little oak wood there are birds and violets, 
and rills are running through the fine grass. At 
sight of the sub-prefect, with his beautiful trousers 
and embossed shagreen case, the birds, affrighted, 
cease to sing, the brooks keep silence, the violets 
hide their heads. To this little world a sub-prefect 
is a strange sight, and in low tones they ask each 
other who this fine lord can be in silver trousers. 

In a low voice, hidden under the foliage, they 


74 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


ask who this fine lord can be in silver trousere. 
The sub -prefect, enchanted with the silence and 
with the freshness of the wood, places his dress hat 
on the ground, and seats himself on the moss at the 
foot of a young oak. Then he lays open the sha- 
green case, and takes from it a large sheet of official 
paper. An artist !” exclaims the wren. “ No,” says 
the bullfinch, “he is not an artist. See his silver 
trousers; he must be a prince.” 

“He must be a prince,” says the bullfinch. “Nei- 
ther artist nor prince,” says an old nightingale who 
has sung in the garden of the prefecture. “ I know 
him ; he is a sub-prefect.” And the little wood all 
whispers, “He is a sub -prefect; he is a sub -pre- 
fect.” “How bald he is,” remarks a large tufted 
little lark. “ Is he wicked ?” ask the violets. “ Oh ! 
not at all !” answers the old nightingale. And with 
this assurance the birds begin to sing, and the brooks 
to run, the violets give out their perfume, all as if 
the sub-prefect had not been there. Unmoved by 
the pretty hubbub, the sub-prefect invokes the muse 
of agricultural meetings. With his pencil upraised, 
in his most rhetorical voice he begins, “ Dear friends 
and citizens — ” 

“ Dear friends and citizens,” says the sub-prefect, 
ill his most rhetorical voice. A burst of laughter 
interrupts him. He looks around, but he sees only 
a large woodpecker perched on the top of his dress 


BALLADS IN PROSE. 


75 


hat, looking at him and laughing. The sub-prefect 
shrugs his shoulders and is on the eve of resum- 
ing his discourse j but the woodpecker interrupts 
him again, crying out from a little distance, “ What 
good is that? what good is that?” “What! what 
good ?” says the sub-prefect, turning quite red. Then 
frightening off the audacious creature, he resumes 
more vehemently : “ Dear friends and citizens — ” 

“ Dear friends and citizens,” resumes the sub-pre- 
fect more vehemently. But now all the little violets 
stretch themselves up on their stems, and say, soft- 
13^, “How do you like our perfume? Is it not 
sweet?” and the brooks running in the moss make 
divine music for him; in the branches over his head 
flocks of wrens come to warble their prettiest songs ; 
and all the little wood conspires together to hinder 
him from composing his discourse. 

iVll the little wood conspires to hinder him from 
composing his discourse. Intoxicated with perfume 
and music, the sub-prefect struggles in vain against 
this new power that is enthralling him. He leans 
his elbow in the grass, unbuttons his fine coat, 
stammers twice or thrice, “Dear friends and citi- 
zens — Dear friends and cit — Dear friends and — ” 
Then he sends the citizens to the devil, and nothing 
is left to the muse of agricultural meetings but to 
hide her face. 

Hide your face, O muse of agricultural meetings. 


76 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


When, an hour after, the employes of the sub-pref- 
ecture come to the woods in search of their patron, 
the sight they saw filled them with horror. Flat on 
his face, with clothes disordered as those of aii}^ 
tramp, munching violets the while, the sub -prefect 
was composing poetry. 


THE CUKE] OF CUCUGN'AK 

Every year at Candlemas the Provengal poets 
publish in Avignon a merry little book, full to the 
binding with beautiful verses and pretty tales. The 
one of this year has just reached me, and 1 find in 
it a charming fabliau which I will try to translate 
for you, abridging it a trifle. Parisians, hold your 
hampers ! It is the finest of Provengal flour that I 
am going to serve to you this time. 

The Abbd Martin was Cure of Cncugnan. He 
had a paternal affection for his people, and had they 
only given him more satisfaction, Cncugnan would 
have been to him a very paradise upon earth. But 
alas ! his confessional was covered with cobwebs and 
dust, and when the beautiful Easter day came round 
the Host remained in the bottom of the holy pyx. 
This grieved the good priest to the heart, and he 
was continually beseeching Heaven to permit him to 
see his flock led back to the fold before he died. 
You shall see whether his prayer was granted. 

One day, after the reading of the gospel, Mr. Mar- 
tin ascended his pulpit. 


78 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


My brethren,” said he, “ I found myself the other 
night — I, miserable sinner that I am — at the gate 
of Paradise. 

“ I knocked. Saint Peter opened to me. 

‘ Oh ! it is you, is it, dear Mr. Martin ? What 
fair wind blows you hither, and what can we do 
for you V 

“ ‘ Holy Saint Peter, you who keep the great book 
and the key, would you tell me, if I be not too pry- 
ing, how many Cucugnaners you have in Para- 
dise V 

“ ‘ I can refuse you nothing, Mr. Martin. Take a 
seat and we will look it up together.’ 

“ And Saint Peter took his great book, opened it, 
put his spectacles on his nose. 

“ ‘ Let us see : Cucugnan, Cu — Cu — Cucugnan ; 
here we are. Why, my dear Mr. Martin, the page 
is a blank ! There are no more Cucugnaners here 
than there are fish-bones in a turkey.’ 

“‘What! JVo one from Cucugnan here? Not a 
Soul ? It is impossible 1 Look again.’ 

“ ‘ Not one, holy man. Look for yourself if you 
think I am jesting.’ 

“ I stamped my feet, and clasping my hands, cried 
out, ‘ Mercy ! mercy !’ 

“ ‘ Believe me, Mr. Martin, it is useless to turn your 
heart inside out in that manner. You might have 
a stroke of apoplexy. After all, it is not your fault. 


THE CUKE OF CUCUGNAN. 


79 


Perhaps your Cucngnaners are serving ont their lit- 
tle time in Purgatory.’ 

“ ^ Oh ! for pity’s sake, great Saint Peter, let me 
at least see and comfort them.’ 

‘“Willingly, my friend. Here, put on these san- 
dals, for the roads are bad. Thei-e, now you are all 
right. Take tlie path which you see straight before 
you. At the turn at the end yonder there is a silver 
gate set with little black crosses. Addessias ! keep 
up a stout heart !’ 

“ I walked and walked — w'hat a walk it was ! 
The bare thought of it makes me shudder! By a 
path lined with briars, carbuncles, and shining, hiss- 
ing snakes, I reached the silver gate. 

“Tap! tap! 

“ ‘ Who is there V asked a hoarse funereal voice. 

“ ‘ The Cure of Cucugnan.’ 

“‘Of—’ 

“ ‘ Of Cucugnan.’ 

“ ‘ Ah ! Come in.’ 

“ I entered. A tall, handsome angel, with wings 
black as night, and a robe resplendent as the day, 
and with a diamond key suspended to his girdle, 
was writing — era — era — era — in a great book, larger 
than Saint Peter’s. 

“‘Beautiful angel of God, I wish to know — I am 
over curious, perhaps— wliether you have here any 
Cucngnaners.’ 


80 


STOKIES OF PKOVENCE. 


ucAny—’ 

‘ Cucngnaners ; any people from Cucugnan ; I am 
their prior.’ 

“ ‘ Ah ! The Abbe Martin f 

“ ‘ At yonr service, Mr. Angel.’ 

“ ‘ Ciicngnan, yon say V And the angel opened 
and turned the leaves of his great book, wetting his 
fingers to turn them more easily. 

“‘Cucugnan,’ he said, with a sigh. ‘Mr. Martin, 
we have not a Cucugnaner in Purgatory.’ 

“ ‘ Jesu ! Mary ! Joseph ! not a soul from Cucugnan 
in Purgatory ! Oh ! great God ! where then can 
they be?’ 

“ ‘ Why, holy man, in Paradise ; where else could 
you suppose V 

“ ‘ But I have just come from Paradise.’ 

“ ‘ You have just come from Paradise ! Well?’ 

“ ‘ And they are not there. Oh ! holy mother of 
the angels !’ 

“ ‘ Then, Mr. Martin, since they are neither in Par- 
adise nor Purgatory, as there is no middle place, 
they must be — ’ 

“ ‘ Holy cross ! Son of David ! Is it possible ? 
Could great Saint Peter have lied to me? I didn’t 
hear the cock crow. Ah ! my poor people ! How 
shall I go to Paradise if my Cucngnaners are not 
there ?’ 

“ ‘ Listen, my poor Mr. Martin. If you must know 


THE CURE OF CUCUGNAN. 


81 


tlie truth for yourself at any price, take that path, 
run, if you know how ; to your left you will see a 
, large gate. There you can find out everything. 
The Lord be with you.’ 

“ And the angel closed the gate. 

“ It was a long road, paved with red embers. I 
staggered like a drunken man, and stumbled at 
every step. The drops oozed from every pore in 
my body and I panted for thirst; but thanks to 
the sandals Saint Peter had lent me, my feet were 
not burned. 

“ When I had staggered on for some distance, I 
saw on my left a gate — no, a gateway, yawning like 
the mouth of a vast furnace. Oh ! my children, 
what a sight ! There they ask no one his name, there 
they keep no register. You may enter in batches, as 
freely as you enter your tavern on Sundays. 

“ I sweated great drops, and yet I was shivering 
with the cold. My hair stood on end. The air 
was filled with the smell of roasting fiesh, like the 
smell we observe in Cucugnan when Eloy the far- 
rier burns the foot of the old ass he is shoeing. I 
could not get my breath, in this burning, sickening 
atmosphere. I heard a frightful din — wrangling, 
groans, howls, oaths. 

“‘Well, are you coming in or not?’ said a horned 
demon, sticking me with his fork. 

‘‘ ‘ I ? No, not I — I am a friend of God.’ 

6 


82 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


“ ‘ Ell ! what then are you here for, you scurvy 
wretch V 

“ ‘ I came — oh ! do not speak to me ! I can scarce 
stand on my feet — I came — I came a long way — to 
ask if — if perchance — you have here — any one — from 
Cucugnan.’ 

‘‘‘Ah! fire of judgment! you must be a fool if 
you do not know that all Cucugnan is here. See — 
look for yourself, ugly beast that you are, if you wish 
to know how your Cucugnaners are arranged.’ 

“And I saw in the midst of a terrible whirlwind 
of fiame, 

“ The long-limbed Coq-Galine — you have all known 
him, my friends — that got drunk and tormented his 
Clairon. 

“I saw Pascal Doigt-le-Poix, who made his oil 
with M. Julien’s olives. 

“ I saw Maitre Crapassi, who oiled so well the 
wheels of his barrow. 

“ And Dauphine, who sold so dear the water of 
his well. 

“ And Tortillard, who when he met me carrying 
the good God went on his way proud as Lucifer, with 
his cap on his head and pipe in his mouth, as if he 
had met a dog. 

“And Conlan, with his Zette and Jacques and 
Pierre and Toni.” 

Trembling and pale, the congregation groaned, as 


THE CUKE OF CUCUGNAN. 


83 


they saw one his father, another his mother ; this one 
a sister, that one a brother. 

“ You understand, do you not, my children, that 
this must not go on. I am answerable for your souls, 
and would fain save you from the abyss into which 
you are plunging. There is no time to be lost. To- 
morrow I shall set to work, and each shall have his 
turn as at the Jonquieres dancing-school. 

“ To-morrow, Monday, I shall confess the old peo- 
ple — that will be trifling ; Tuesday the children — that 
will soon be over; Wednesday the boys and girls — 
that may be long ; Thursday the men — that may be 
cut short ; Friday the women — I shall say, no scan- 
dals; Saturday the miller — he must have a day to 
himself. And if by Sunday we have finished, we 
shall be fortunate. 

“ You know, my children, when the grain is ripe it 
must be cut; when the wine is drawn, it must be 
drank. We have plenty of soiled linen ; it must be 
washed, and well washed. This is the grace I ask 
for you. Amen.’’ 

It was done as he said. From this memorable 
Sunday the perfume of the Cucugnan virtues pene- 
trated the air for leagues around. And the good 
abbe, happy and liglit of heart, dreamed the other 
night that, followed by his whole flock, a resplendent 
procession, amid lighted candles, a cloud of incense, 
and choir -boys chanting the Te Deurn, he was as- 
cending the starry route to the City of God. 


THE LIGHT-HOUSE AT THE 
SAHGUINAIRES. 


Last niglit I was unable to sleep. The mistral 
blew violently, and its howling kept me awake. The 
mutilated fan of my mill swayed and whistled in 
the blast like the rigging of a ship ; the whole mill 
creaked. The tiles were flying from the roof in 
complete rout; the pine-trees groaned and whizzed. 
I could have believed myself in mid-ocean. 

It recalled vividly to my mind a night which I 
passed three years ago at the light-house of the San- 
guinaires on the coast of Corsica, at the entrance of 
the Gulf of Ajaccio. Here was still another quiet 
nook that I discovered, where I might be alone and 
dream. 

Picture to yourself a reddish island of wild aspect; 
at one end of it the light-house, at the other an old 
Genoese tower, where in those days an eagle had 
made itself a home. On the water’s edge the ruins 
of a lazaretto overgrown with weeds; ravines, jun- 
gles, massive rocks, a few wild goats, Corsican horses, 
with manes floating to the breeze as they gambolled, 
and above, far above all this, amid a whirlwind of 
sea-birds, the light-house, with the watch pacing to 


THE LIGHT-HOUSE AT THE SANGUINAIRES. 85 


and fro on its white platform, its green ogive door, 
slender cast-iron tower, and the great lantern, with its 
facets flaming up to the sun and giving light even 
"by day, and you have the island of the Sanguinaires 
as I saw it last night as I lay awake listening to the 
rumbling of my pines. It was to this enchanted isle 
that, before I had the mill, I would go sometimes and 
shut myself up when I felt a need of fresh air and 
solitude. 

What did I do there ? 

What I do here ; less still. 

When the wind was not too violent, 1 would find 
a place for myself between two rocks, on the edge 
of the water, in the midst of gulls, blackbirds, and 
swallows, and remain there nearly all day in the sort 
of stupor, the delicious torpor, to which the contem- 
plation of the sea disposes. Doubtless every one is 
familiar with this state in which one does not think, 
not even dream — when one’s whole personality es- 
capes, flutters away, evaporates. You are no longer 
yourself, you are the gull plunging into the waters, 
the foam cloud floating upward to the sun between 
two waves, the white smoke of yonder packet-boat 
steaming away in the distance, the little coral boat 
with red sails, this pearl of water, this flake of mist 
—all, everything, excepting yourself. Oh ! what de- 
licious days of semi-oblivion have I passed on my 
island ! 


86 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


When the wind blew hard, the shore not being 
tenable, I would shut myself up in the court of the 
lazaretto, a melancholy little court with a scent of 
rosemary and wild wormwood, and then, leaning 
against a side of the old wall, w^ould abandon m}^- 
self to the influence of the solitude and sadness 
which floated with the light of day into the stone 
cells that opened all around me like ancient tombs. 
Now and then the flapping of a door would break 
the silence, or the light bound of a goat come to 
browse under shelter from the wind, and which, 
seeing me, would stop short, with its lively air and 
horns held high, and gaze at me out of infantine 
eyes. 

At flve the horn of the watch summoned me to 
dinner. I took a little path through the jungle ris- 
ing almost perpendicularly from the sea, and wended 
my way slowly in the direction of the lighthouse, 
pausing with each step to turn again and look at the 
immense horizon of water and light which grew 
more and more vast as I ascended. 

Above, it was charming. I can still see before me 
the handsome dining-room, with large flagging and 
oak panelling, and the great door opened on the ter- 
race to the setting sun. The watchmen were wait- 
ing for me to sit down to dinner. There were three, 
one a native of Marseilles and two Corsicans; all 
three small, bearded, with the same tanned, weather- 


THE LIGHT-HOUSE AT THE SANGUINAIRES. 87 


beaten faces and goat-skin pelone,* but the opposites 
of eacli otlier in character and habits. The Marseillais, 
active and industrious, always busied with gardening, 
fishing, searching for gull’s eggs, or lying in ambush 
to milk a goat as she passed ; the Corsicans, on the 
other hand, with no occupations outside of their reg- 
ular functions, and spending their leisure hours in the 
kitchen playing interminable games of scopa, stop- 
ping only long enough to relight their pipes and 
hack a little tobacco in the hollow of their hands 
with their knives. All good fellows, withal, simple- 
hearted and very attentive to their guest, who must 
in truth have seemed to them a very singular mon- 
sieur to shut himself up of his own pleasure in the 
light-house. For them the days were long and wear- 
isome, the only relief to their tedium being when 
their turn came to go on shore. When the weather 
was good this great happiness was theirs every month. 
Ten days of land to thirty of light-house was the rule, 
but during the stormy season no rule held good. 
When the wind blows, the waves rise, and the San- 
guinaires are white with foairi, the watch is some- 
times blockaded there for three months at a time, 
and that under frightful circumstances. 

“ Let me tell you, sir, what happened to me,” said 
old Bartoli, one day while we were at dinner. Here 


* A kind of cloak with hood and sleeves. 


88 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


is what happened to me five years ago at this very 
table, on one winter evening such as tliis. There 
were only two of us in the light-house, I and a com- 
rade named Tcheco, the rest were on leave on land. 
We were just finishing our dinner when my comrade 
stopped eating, looked at me very strangely for a 
moment, and then fell over on the table, with his 
arms stretched out before him. I went to him, shook 
him, and called him by name. Tche! oh! Tche! 
IS^o answer. He was dead. 

‘‘ I stood there for an hour trembling before the 
corpse, and tlieii suddenly it fiashed into my head — 
the light-house! I had but just time to hurry up 
and light the lantern before night fell, and what a 
night that was, sir ! The sea and wind seemed no 
longer to talk with their natural voices, and every 
moment I fancied I heard some one calling to me 
on the stairs. I was feverish and thii*sty, but noth- 
ing would Have induced me to go down, such was 
my horror of the dead man. 

“ However, when day dawned, my courage revived 
a little and I went down-stairs, carried my comrade 
to his bed, drew the covering over him, repeated a 
short prayer, and hurried to the alarm signal. 

But the sea was too heavy. I called in vain ; no 
one came, and I was left alone in the light-house 
with poor Tcheco for Heaven knows how long. I 
hoped to keep him till the boat arrived, but at the 


THE LIGHT-HOUSE AT THE SANGUINAIKES. 89 

end of three days it was no longer possible. What 
was I to do? Carry him out? Bury him? But 
there was too much hard rock, and the island was 
full of crows. It seemed a pity to abandon to them 
a good Christian like this. Then I thought of taking 
him down to one of the cells of the lazaretto. This 
sad work occupied a whole afternoon, and I had to 
summon all my courage, you may believe me ! To 
this day, sir, when I go down on that side of the 
island on a windy afternoon, I seem to myself to be 
carrying a dead man on my shoulders.” 

Poor old Bartoli! The drops gathered on his 
brow at the bare recollection. 

We finished our repast, talking at length abqut the 
light-house, the sea, shipwrecks, and Corsican ban- 
ditti. Then, as day was declining, the first watch 
took his pipe, his gourd, a big volume of Plutarch 
with red edges — the whole library of the Sangui- 
naires — and disappeared by a back door, and a min- 
ute after. we heard a noise of chains and pulleys, the 
winding up of the ponderous clock. 

I went outside and took my seat on the terrace. 
The sun, already low, was rapidly descending to the 
water, carrying the horizon along with it. The wind 
blew up fresher, the island assumed a violet tint. A 
large bird passed slowly by me — the eagle of the 
Genoese tower returning home. 

Gradually the mists began to ascend from the sea. 


90 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


and soon nothing was visible but a white line of 
foam encircling the island. Suddenly, over my head 
there burst forth a great flood of soft light. Leaving 
the island in shadow, its bright ray fell broad and 
full over the sea, while I stood lost in the darkness 
under the great luminous waves that well nigh 
splashed me with their foam. But the wind was 
blowing up more briskly. It became necessary to 
return. Feeling my way along I reached the outer 
door, closed it, and made fast the iron bars ; then, 
still groping, by a little iron staircase that shook and 
resounded under my tread, I reached the top of the 
light-house. Here, indeed, there was light ! 

Imagine a gigantic Carcel lamp with six rows of 
wicks, around which slowly revolve on a pivot the 
walls of the lantern, provided with an enormous crys- 
tal lens and a large stationary glass to protect the 
flame from the wind. When I first entered I was 
dazed. These coppers and tins, all these dazzling 
reflectors and swelling crystal walls turning with 
great bluish circles, this flashing and clashing of 
light, affected me with a sensation of vertigo. 

Gradually my eyes accustomed themselves to it, 
however, and I seated myself at the foot of the lamp 
by the side of the watch, who was reading his Plu- 
tarch aloud to keep from falling asleep. Without, 
there was the blackness of darkness. The wind 
howled like a madman as it swept along the little 


THE LIGHT-HOUSE AT THE SANGUINAIRES. 91 

balcony which revolved around the glass ; the light- 
house creaked; the sea roared; the waves dashed 
on the rocks at the farther end of the island like the 
booming of artillery. At moments an invisible fin- 
ger would strike on the glass — some night-bird, 
drawn by the light, had broken its head on the crys- 
tal. From the sparkling, warm lantern came the 
sound of the crackling of the fiame, the dropping of 
the oil, the unwinding of the chain, and a monoto- 
nous voice intoning the life of Demetrius Phalereus. 

At midnight the watch rose, cast a last glance at 
his wicks, and we went down -stairs together. On 
the stairs we met his comrade of the second watch 
rubbing his eyes, and the gourd and Plutarch were 
passed to him. Before seeking our couches we went 
to the back room, encumbered with chains, weights, 
tin reservoirs, ropes; and by the light of his little 
lamp the watch inscribed in the large light-house 
book which always stood open — 

Midnight. Heavy sea. 

Ship out at sea. Stormy. 


THE WKECK OF THE « SfiMILLANTE.’’ 


The mistral having carried us the other night to 
the Corsican coast, let me tell you a terrible story of 
the sea which the fishermen often talk over during 
their vigils, and concerning which chance furnished 
me with some curious details. 

It was two or three years ago. I was scouring the 
sea of Sardinia in company with six or seven sailors 
belonging to the customs — a rough voyage for a 
novice. During the whole month of March we had 
not a single day of fair weather. The wind pursued 
us madly, and the sea never ceased its raging. 

One evening when we were flying before a hur- 
ricane, our vessel took refuge in the midst of a clus- 
ter of islands at the entrance of the Strait of Boni- 
facio. Their aspect presented nothing inviting — great 
bare rocks covered with birds, here and there a 
tuft of wormwood, thickets of mastics, patches of 
woods rotting in the mud. But even these dreary 
rocks were better than a berth on an old half-deck 
vessel, which the waves had the privilege of entering 
at will, and we were fain to content ourselves. 

When we had landed, and the sailors were light- 


THE wrece: of the “semillante.” 93 

ing a fire to inake the bouillabaisse, the patron called 
to me, and pointing out a little white enclosure lost 
in the fog at the farther end of the island — 

“Will you come with me to the cemetery?” said 
he. 

“The cemetery, Captain Leonetti? Where then 
are we ?” 

“ At the Lavezzi islands, sir. It is here that the 
six hundred men of the SemMlante are buried, in 
the same spot where their frigate was wrecked ten 
years ago. Poor f ellow.s ! they have few visitors ; it 
is the least we can do, now we are here, to give them 
a greeting.” 

“With all my heart, captain.” 

A sad place is the cemetery of the Semillante ! I 
can see it still, with its little low wall, its iron gate, 
rusty and hard to open, its silent chapel, and the 
hundred black crosses hidden in the grass. Not a 
crown of immortelles, not a souvenir — nothing. Ah! 
the^e poor abandoned dead, how cold it must have 
felt in their chance tombs I 

We remained there a moment on our knees. The 
captain prayed aloud. Enormous gulls, the sole 
guardians of the cemetery, circled above our heads, 
mingling their hoarse cries with the wailing of the 
sea. 

The prayer ended, we returned sorrowfully towards 
the corner of the island where our vessel was moored. 


94 


STORIES OP PROVEKCE. 


The sailors had not been idle during onr absence. 
We found a large fire burning under shelter of a 
rock, and the pot smoking. We seated ourselves 
around it, with our feet to the flame, and soon we 
each had on our knees, in a red clay porringer, two 
slices of black bread well watered. The repast was 
eaten in silence. We were hungry and wet, and 
then the neighborhood of the cemetery was not 
enlivening. However, when the porringers were 
^nptied and our pipes lighted, we began to chat a 
little. 

“ How did it happen I asked of the captain, who 
sat with his head leaning on his hands, gazing into 
the fire. 

“ How it happened,” he answered, with a sigh, “ no 
living mortal can tell. All we know is that the Se- 
millante, loaded with troops for the Crimea, sailed 
from Toulon before dark, in ugly weather. In the 
night it grew worse ; it stormed and rained, and such 
a heavy sea as never was. In the morning the wind 
abated a little, but the sea was still tossing, pitching 
liere and there and everywhere; and with it all the 
devil’s own fog, you couldn’t see a lantern ten paces 
off. It is my opinion that the Semillante must have 
lost her rudder in the morning, for these fogs never 
last, and without some damage the captain wouldn’t 
have run on these rocks. He was a bold sailor, 
whom we all knew, had commanded the station at 


THE WRECK OF THE “ SEMILLANTE.” 95 

Corsica, and knew the coast as well as I who know 
nothing else.” 

“ And at what hour is the Semillante supposed to 
have perished 

“ It must have been noon, sir, broad noonday; but, 
darn me ! with the sea - fog noon is worth no more 
than night black as a wolfs jaws. A customs officer 
of the coast told me that on that day, about half-past 
eleven, having come out of his little house to fasten 
his shutters, his cap, was carried off by a gust, amj^ 
that he ran along the shoi-e after it at the risk of be- 
ing swept away by the waves. You see, these cus- 
toms men are not rich, and a cap costs them dear. 
At a certain moment, happening to raise his head, 
he saw through the fog, quite near him, a lai’ge ship 
with bare poles, flying before the wind towards the 
Lavezzi islands. The vessel flew so fast that the 
officer had but just time to get a glimpse of lier; 
but there is every reason to believe it was the Semil- 
lante^ since a half-hour later the shepherd of the isl- 
ands heard — But here is the shepherd himself, 

sir; he will tell you his own tale. Good-day, Pa- 
lombo ; come and warm yourself a little ; don’t be 
afraid.” 

A man in a hood, whom I had remarked a mo- 
mcTit before loitering near our Are, and whom I had 
supposed to be one of the crew not being aware that 
there was a shepherd on the island, approached tim- 


96 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


idly. He was an old leper, three-fourths idiot, the 
victim of some scorbutic malady which had fright- 
fully swollen and disfigured his lips. They explained 
to him not without difficulty the subject of our dis- 
course, and the old man related to us how, on the 
day in question, about twelve o’clock, he heard in his 
cabin a terrible crashing noise. The island was so 
covered "with water that he could not go out, and it 
was not till next day that, opening his door, he saw 
the shore all strewn with wrecks and bodies thrown 
up by the sea. Terrified, he hurried to Bonifacio 
in quest of men. 

Fatigued with his recital, he sank into a seat, and 
the captain resumed : 

“ Yes, sir, it was this poor old man who came to 
notify us. He was half dead with terror, and his 
brain has ever since been unsettled. And indeed it 
is no wonder. Fancy six hundred corpses piled up 
on the sand pell-mell with fragments of wood and 
scraps of torn sail. Poor Seinillante ! The sea had 
crushed her to atoms so that out of all the wreck 
Palombo could hardly find material for a paling 
round his little hut. As for the men, they were 
nearly all frightfully mutilated and disfigured; it 
was pitiful to see them grappled together in lumps. 
YTe found the captain in full-dress, the priest in his 
stole, in a corner between two rocks a little cabin- 
boy with his eyes wide open — one would have de- 


THE WRECK OF THE “ SEMILLANTE.” 97 

dared that he was still alive ; but no, it was decreed 
that not one of them all was to escape.” 

Here the captain paused. 

“ See to the fire, Nardi, it is going out.” 

Nardi threw on the einbil‘3 two or three pieces of 
plank smeared with tar, which blazed up, and Leo- 
netti resumed : 

“ The saddest part of the story is this : Three 
weeks before the disaster, a little corvette, bound, like 
the Semillante^ for the Crimea, was wrecked in the 
same way, almost on the same spot ; only that time 
we succeeded in rescuing the crew and twenty train- 
soldiers. We took i.nem to Bonifacio and kept them 
two days, and when they were well dried and on 
their feet again ^hey returned to Toulon. A short 
time after, they set sail again for the Crimea, and on 
what vessel do you think, sir? On the Semillante! 
We found them all — all the twenty — among the dead. 
I myself raised a handsome coj’poral with a blond 
mustache, wlio had stayed at my house and kept us 
all laughing with his anecdotes and jokes. To see 
liim there made my heart sick. Ah, Santa Madre!” 

Here the^ good Leonetti paused, much agitated, 
shook the ashes from his pipe, drew his cloak around 
him, and bade me good-night. The sailors talked to- 
gether a while longer in smothered tones. Then one 
by one the pipes went out and they ceased to talk. 
The old shepherd took his departure, and I re- 
7 


98 


STORIES OF PROVEN'CE. 


mained alone, dreaming, in the midst of the sleeping 
crew. 

My thoughts still full of the melancholy catastro- 
phe, I made an attempt to reconstruct in my own 
mind the poor lost vessel, and the incidents of this 
wreck, of which the gulls were the sole witnesses. 
Certain details which had impressed me — the cap- 
tain in full-dress, the priest in his stole, the twenty 
rescued train-soldiers — aided me to form a concep- 
tion of the circumstances of the tragedy. I saw the 
frigate set sail from the port of Toulon with a liigh 
wind and boisterous sea ; but the captain is a skilful, 
intrepid sailor, and all is ease and confidence on 
board. 

In the morning the fog gathers. They begin to 
grow uneasy. The captain never quits the poop. 
In the underdeck, where the soldiers are confined, it 
is black night, the atmosphere close and sultry. A 
few are ill, and lying in the hammocks. The ship 
pitches horribly. It is impossible to stand, and they 
talk together squatting in groups on the floor, cling- 
ing to the benches. One of the number shows signs 
of uneasiness — shipwrecks are so frequent in these 
parts ! The corporal, who is a true Parisian, always 
blustering, makes their flesh creep with his jests. 
“Shipwrecks! nothing can be more amusing! It is 
simply an ice bath, then a journey to Bonifacio to 
eat blackbirds with Captain Leonetti.” 


THE WRECK OF THE “ SEMILLANTE.' 


99 


Suddenly a cracking noise is lieard. “What is 
the matter?” “What has happened?” “The rud- 
der is gone,” answers a sailor, soaking wet, who 
runs across the underdeck. “ A pleasant voyage to 
it!” cries the hare-brained corporal. But no one 
laughs. 

There is great confusion on deck. Not a wink 
can be seen for the fog. The terrified sailors are 
groping hither and thither. They have no rudder, 
and manoeuvre is impossible. The Semillante, now 
left to herself, shoots along like the wind. It was 
at this moment that the customs officer saw her pass. 
It is half-])ast eleven. The frigate hears a noise like 
the booming of guns in front of her — the breakers! 
the breakers ! All is over — there is no hope — they 
are heading straight on the coast. The captain goes 
down to his cabin, and in another minute has re- 
sumed his place on the poop — in full-dress. He 
wishes to put on his best looks to die. 

On the underdeck the soldiers, anxious, glance 
from one to the other but do not speak. The sick 
ones try to rise — the little corporal has ceased to 
laugh. At this moment the door opens and the 
priest appears on the threshold in his stole. “ Down 
on your knees, boys !” All obey, and in a loud voice 
he repeats the prayer for the perishing at sea. 

Suddenly there is a great shock ; loud cries — arms 
stretched out-— hands clutched convulsively — wild 


100 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


faces over which tlie vision of death has passed in a 
lightning flash. Heaven have mercy ! 

It was thus that I passed the night, dreaming, and 
conjuring up, at a distance of ten years, tlie soul of 
the poor vessel whose wrecks lay around me. Far 
away in the strait the storm was raging, the flame 
of our bivouac bent to the blast, and I could hear 
the dancing of our vessel and the creaking of her 
rope at the foot of the rocks. 


LEGEND OF THE MAN WITH GOLD 
BRAINS. 


To a lady who asks me for some cheerful stories: 

I read yonr letter, dear madam, with feelings of 
compunction. I reproached myself for the half- 
mourning tint of my little sketches, and said to 
myself that to-day I would give you something gay, 
something hilarious. 

After all, what right have I to be sad ? I am liv- 
ing at a thousand leagues distance from the fogs of 
Paris, on a sunshiny little hill, in the country of tam- 
bourines and muscat wine. Around me all is sun- 
shine and music. There are orchestras of robins, 
choristers of titmice, matin songs — Courelay ! con- 
relay!” — from the curlews; at mid-day the cicadas, 
then the herdsmen playing on the fife, the merry 
laughter of nut-brown maids. In truth, it is a spot 
ill-chosen for the blue devils. I should be offering 
you, rather, couleur-de-rose poems and baskets of 
pretty love-stories. 

But alas ! I am still too near Paris. Even here 
in my pines it splashes me every day with its mud. 
As I write I have just learned the sad end of poor 


102 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


Charles Barbara, and have put my mill in mourning. 
Adieu, curlews and cicadas ! I have no more heart 
to be gay. This, madam, is why, in place of the 
sprightliness I had intended, you will have again to- 
day only a melancholy legend. 

There once lived a man who had brains of gold — 
yes, madam, of solid gold. When he came into the 
world the doctors thought he could not live, his head 
was so heavy and so out of proportion to his size. 
He did live, however, and grew up like a flourishing 
olive-plant in the sunshine. Only his large head con- 
tinually weighed him down, and it was sad to see 
how he would strike against objects in passing. He 
often fell, and on one occasion, falling from the top 
of a flight of stairs and striking his head upon a mar- 
ble step, it gave out a metallic sound like an ingot. 
They thought he had killed himself ; but he rose, and 
it was found he had only a trifling wound and a few 
drops of gold matted in his bright brown hair. This 
was how the parents flrst learned that the boy had 
gold brains. 

The amazing discovery was kept a profound se- 
cret. Even the boy himself suspected nothing. How 
and then he would ask why it was not permitted him 
to play on the street like other boys. 

“ They would steal you, my treasure,” replied his 
mother. 


LEGEND OF THE MAN WITH GOLD BRAINS. 103 

After this a great dread of being stolen possessed 
the child, and he continued to play all alone, drag- 
ging himself heavily from room to room. Not till 
he had reached his eighteenth year did his parents 
reveal to him how wonderfully nature had gifted 
him; and having cared for him up to that time, 
they now claimed a share of his gold.” 

The youth did not hesitate. How he did it the 
legend does not narrate, but he detached a lump of 
solid gold from his brain, large as a walnut, and 
tossed it proudly into his mother’s lap. Then daz- 
zled by the knowledge of the riches which he car- 
ried in his head, drunk with desires, intoxicated with 
the sense of power, he went out into the world to 
squander his treasure. 

From the rate at which he now lived, the royal, 
reckless manner in which he scattered his gold, it 
might have been supposed that his brain was ex- 
haustless. But it was not so; and as his store 
diminished, the lustre of his eyes dimmed and his 
cheeks grew sunken. At last, one evening, after a 
wild revel, finding himself alone amid the remains 
of the feast and the fading lights, he observed the 
ravages which had been made in his ingot, and was 
terrified. He resolved to stop short in his mad 
career. 

He now began a different life — a sober, retired 
existence. He worked hard, became timid and 


104 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


anxious as a miser, avoided temptation, and even 
strove to forget his fatal riches, which he was re- 
solved to leave intact. But a friend had followed 
him into his retreat who knew his secret. One 
night the poor man was wakened out of his sleep 

a terrible pain in liis head. He started up, be- 
wildered, and in a ray of moonlight he saw his 
friend hurrying away with something concealed 
under his cloak. 

It was another piece of liis brain of which he had 
been robbed. 

It came about, in course of time, that the man 
with gold brains fell in love, and then it was all over 
with him. The little blond woman returned his 
love, but she loved better still her finery, her white 
plumes, and the pretty red tassels of her boots. 

To see his gold melting away in the hands of such 
a dear creature as this — half-bird, half-doll — was a 
positive delight. She had every caprice that could 
enter one’s brain, and he could deny her nothing. 
Such was his fear of paining her that he even kept 
concealed from her the secret of his riches. 

“We are very, very rich, are we not, dear?” she 
asked. 

“ Oh yes, very rich !” and he caressed with a 
smile the little bluebird that was devouring his 
brain. 


LEGEND OF THE MAN WITH GOLD BRAINS. 105 

At times, however, panic -struck as it were, he 
wanted to lioard his treasure ; but the little woman 
would dance up to him, and say, 

“We are so rich, dear husband, please buy me 
something costly.” 

And he bought her something costly. 

This lasted two years ; and then one morning the 
little wife died, no one could tell why — died like a 
bird. He had nearly reached the end of his treas- 
ure, but with what remained of it he gave her a 
splendid burial. There were bells, carriages hung 
with black, plumed horses, silver tears in velvet — 
nothing was too grand. What was his gold to him 
now ? lie gave it to the Church, to the bearers, to 
the venders of immortelles — he gave it everywhere, 
and without a thought. When he left the grave- 
yard hardly anything remained of this marvellous 
brain — only a few particles sticking to the sides of 
his skull. 

He walked the streets with a haggard air, stagger- 
ing like a drunken man ; and when evening came 
and the shops were lighted, he stopped in front of two 
large windows, with a fine display of stuffs and or- 
naments glistening in the light, and stoodTliere gaz- 
ing at a pair of little blue satin boots bordered with 
swan’s-down. “ I know who would like those boots,” 
he said, smiling to himself; and quite forgetting that 
his little wife was dead, he entered and bought them. 


106 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


A man in the back of the shop heard a cry, and 
came forward quickly; but he started in alarm at 
sight of a man leaning against the counter, in one 
hand the blue boots bordered with swan’s-down, and 
holding out the other, all bloody, with scrapings of 
gold on his nails. 

This, madam, is the legend of the man with gold 
brains. 

Despite its somewhat fantastical air, it is true — 
every word of it. There are persons condemned to 
live of their brains, and who pay in fine gold out of 
their marrow and substance for the veriest trifles of 
existence. For such it is a grief of every day ; and 
when, weary at last of the suffering — 

Decidedly, madam, this is a melancholy tale. I 
will end it here. 


BIXIQU’S POCKET-BOOK. 


One October morning, soon after my departure 
from Paris, there came to me while I was at break- 
fast an old man, shabby, bent, bow-legged, shivering 
like a wading-bird on his long legs. It was Bixioii ; 
yes, Parisians, your Bixiou, the reckless, hare-brained, 
delightful Bixiou, who during fifteen years enchanted 
you with his wild jests, pamphlets, and caricatures. 
Ah, poor wretch ! but for the grimace which he made 
on entering I should never have recognized him. 

With his head on one side and his cane held to 
his mouth like a clarionet, the forlorn, illustrious old 
wag advanced to the middle of the room, and said 
in a piteous tone, 

“ Pity a poor blind old man !” 

It seemed such excellent mimicry that I could not 
repress a smile. 

Do you think I am jesting ? Look at my eyes.” 

And he turned towards me two large colorless and 
sightless balls. 

“I am blind, sir, stone-blind for life. So much 
for writing with vitriol. This pretty business has lost 


108 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


me my eyes — burned them to the sockets,” he added, 
pointing to his scorched lids, where not the vestige 
of a lash remained. 

I was too much moved to speak. My silence dis- 
quieted him. 

‘‘ Are you at work he asked. 

“ No, Bixiou, I am breakfasting. Will you join 
me?” 

He did not answer, but the little quiver of his 
nostrils told me that he was eager to accept. I took 
his hand and seated him by my side. 

While he was being served the poor devil sniffed 
tlie breakfast with a little smile. 

“It is good, all this. It is long since I have 
feasted. A penny loaf on my way to the departments 
in the morning — for I run after the ministers now; 
that is my only occupation. I am after a tobacco 
bureau ; I cannot allow my family to starve, you 
know. I can no longer draw nor write, and as for 
dictating, there is nothing in my head. My work 
was to watch the grimaces of Paris and imitate them, 
and as I can no longer do that I thought of the to- 
bacco bureau. Not on the boulevards, you under- 
stand ; I have no right to claim that favor, being nei- 
ther the son of a danseuse, nor the widow of a dra- 
goon. No, a little provincial bureau in a distant 
corner of the Yosges, where I shall smoke a clay pipe, 
call myself Hans or Zebedee, as in Hrkman - Cha- 


BIXIOU’S POCKET-BOOK. 


109 


triaii, and console myself for the loss of my own 
work by making tobacco cornets of the works of my 
contemporaries. 

“ This is all I ask; not very much, is it? Well, it 
is the devil to get, though I have no lack of patrons. 
I was once well known in the world ; I dined at the 
marshal’s, the prince’s, the minister’s, and was sought 
after by them all. I amused them, and they feared 
me. Now, no one fears me. Oh, my eyes ! my 
poor eyes ! And no one invites me — it is so sad to 
sit at table with a blind man ! Pass me the bread, 
please. Ah, the rascals! they make me pay dear 
for this tobacco business. Here is six months that I 
have been lounging about the departments with my 
petition. I arrive in the morning when the fires are 
being liglited and his excellency’s horses are about 
taking a turn in the court, and leave at night when 
they bring the lamps and the kitchen begins to smell 
good. I pass my whole time on the boxes in the 
antechambers. The ushers know me ; at the Interior 
they call me ‘ Ce bon monsieur.’ I buy their good 
offices by making puns for them. This is what I am 
reduced to after twenty years of roistering success. 
And to think that there are forty thousand dogs in 
France whose mouths water to join our craft. To 
think that every day a locomotive steams up in the 
provinces to bring imbeciles by the basketful to 
Paris, famishing for literature and printed fame. 


110 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


Ah, poor fools ! If the misery of Bixiou might 
serve you as a warning !” 

After a moment’s silence he resumed : 

“Do you know what is to me tlie most terrible 
tiling of all ? It is, not to be able to read my papers 
any longer. Yon would have to be one of us to un- 
derstand that. Sometimes I buy one in the evening, 
only to be able to smell the damp paper and fresh 
news. It is so good ! I have no one to read them 
to me ; my wife could, but she will not, she says ; 
there are improper things in the ^fait divers^ Ah, 
these ex-mistresses are the greatest of prudes wdien 
once they are married ! Since I made her Madame 
Bixiou she has turned devotee, and what with the 
consecrated bread, the collections, the Sainte-Enfance, 
the little Chinese, we are over head and ears in good 
works. I should think it a good work if she would 
read me my papers; but no! And since I became 
blind I have entered my daughter at Notre-Dame-des- 
Arts, to give her a chance to earn a morsel. And 
here was another piece of tine luck ! She hadn’t 
been nine years in the world before she had been 
through the whole category of complaints, and dull! 
and ugly ! — uglier than I, if you can believe that 
— a monster — never anything but an expense to 
me. Ah, I am very good to give you all these 
family details; what is it to you? When I leave 
here I am off to the ‘ Public Instruction.’ The ush- 


BIXIOU’S POCKET-BOOK. 


Ill 


ers there are not so easy to cajole though — all old 
birds.” 

I poured out a glass of brandy for him, and his 
features softened as he sipped it slowly. What sud- 
den impulse moved him I am unable to guess, but 
he rose, and raising his glass in his hand turned his 
viper head slowly around with the ingratiating smile 
of one about to address an audience. Then in a 
clear, ringing voice, as if addressing a table at which 
two hundred guests were seated: “To arts!” “To 
letters 1” “ To the press 1” and then began a toast 
which lasted three-quarters of an hour — the wildest, 
strangest improvisation that ever emanated from 
even this wizard-like brain. 

Fancy a review of the year, entitled, “The Streets 
of Literature in 186- ” — the literary assemblies, rival- 
ries, quarrels, the fumes of ink arising from a hell 
without augustness where they strangle one another, 
disembowel one another, plunder one another, where 
they talk more of protits and big sous than do the 
tradespeople, and where they starve to death ; all the 
miseries, the meanness, the yearly deaths, the burials 
“ reclarae^'^ the funeral oration of Monsieur the Del- 
egate over a poor wretch for whose grave there is none 
to pay, the suicides, the madmen — all this detailed, 
recapitulated, gesticulated, by a lampooner of genius 
— and you have an idea of Bixiou’s improvisation. 

His toast ended and glass drunk, he asked the 


112 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


hour, and took his departure with a wild look and 
without taking leave of me. I cannot say what im- 
pression he made on M. Diiruy’s ushers that day, 
blit I had never in my life felt so saddened, so lit- 
tle in the mood for work, as I did after my terri- 
ble blind guest had departed. My ink sickened me, 
my pen filled me with horror. I felt a need to fly, 
to look at trees, to feel the influence of something 
good. What bitterness ! grand Dieu, what rancor ! 
Why did he have to come to me thus, and slobber 
over everything, pollute everything ! 

I paced my chamber in agitation, seeming to hear 
all the while the sneer of disgust with which the 
man had spoken of his daughter. Suddenly I felt 
my foot come in contact with some object by the 
chair where the blind man had sat. I recognized his 
pocket-book — a large shining pocket-book, worn and 
broken at the corners, which he had been accustomed 
to speak of jestingly as his venom-book. It was as 
noted as M. Girardin’s famous cartoons, and was be- 
lieved to be the depository of terrible things. It 
was an excellent opportunity to satisfy my curiosity. 
Being over-stufled, it had burst in falling, and the 
contents spilled on the carpet. I picked up the pa- 
pers one by one. 

There was a little package of letters, written on 
flowered paper, beginning, “Dear Papa,” and signed 
“ Celine Bixiou.” 


BIXIOU’S POCKET-BOOK. 


113 


Old prescriptions for children’s ailments — croup, 
convulsions, scarlatina, measles (the poor child had 
not escaped one). 

Lastly, a large sealed envelope, from which a lock 
of yellow hair was escaping as out of a girl’s bonnet, 
and on the envelope, in a large, trembling hand — a 
blind man’s hand — 

“ Celine’s hair, cut May 13th, the day I entered her 
at Notre-Dame-des-Arts.” 

This was all that Bixiou’s pocket-book contained. 

Come, Parisians, you are all the same. Disgust, 
irony, demoniac laughter, wild bluster, ending with, 
“ Celine’s hair, cut May 13th.” 

8 


THE POET MISTKAL. 


When I rose last Sunday, I could have believed 
myself in the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre. It was 
raining, the sky was gray, my mill dark and gloomy. 
Dreading to pass this chill, rainy day at home, the 
thought suddenly came into my head to go and warm 
myself a little at the house of Frederic Mistral, the 
great Provengal poet, who lives three leagues from 
my pines. 

No sooner thought than done. A myrtle-wood 
stick, my copy of Montaigne, my cloak, and I am 
off. 

No one was abroad. Our beautiful Catholic Pro- 
vence suffers her ground to rest on Sundays. Only 
the dogs were at home. Now and then I would come 
upon a wagon with its dripping tarpaulin, an old 
woman in a hood and dead-leaf cape, a cariole full 
of people on their way to church, drawn by mules in 
their Sunday rig, with blue and white housings, and 
through the mist down below I saw a boat on the 
Rhone, and a fisherman standing in it casting his net. 

There was no reading for me on the route that 
day. The rain fell in torrents and the wind dashed 


THE POET MISTRAL. 


115 


it in ray face by whole bucketfuls. I made the jour- 
ney without stopping to take breath, and after a three 
hours’ walk I saw before me the little cypress wood 
which shelters the village of Maillane from the wind. 

Not a cat on the village roads — everybody was at 
high mass. I heard the rumbling of the organ as I 
passed the church door, and saw the lighting of the 
candles through the painted windows. 

The poet’s house is at the farther end of the vil- 
lage, the last on the left on the road to Saint Kemy, 
a little one-story building, witli a garden in front. I 
opened the door softly. No one ! The door of the sa- 
lon was closed, but I heard some one within walking, 
and speaking in a loud voice. I knew the step and 
voice well. I paused in the little whitewashed pas- 
sage, with my hand on the door-knob, greatly agitated. 
He is there — he is at work. Shall I enter, or shall I 
wait till the strophe is finished ? No, I will enter. 

Ah, Parisians, when the poet of Maillane has come 
to you to show Paris to his Mireio, and you have 
seen in your salons this Chactas in the city coat and 
straight collar, which oppressed him almost as much 
as his glory, you have fancied you saw Mistral ; but 
that was not he. There is but one Mistral, and that 
is the one whom I surprised last Sunday in his vil- 
lage, with his felt hat down over his ears, in a sliort 
coat and no vest, a red Catalan taillole about his 


116 


STORIES OP PROVINCE. 


waist ; with a kindling eye, the fire of inspiration on 
his cheeks, a genial smile, elegant as a Greek shep- 
herd, pacing the room with long strides, and com- 
posing verses with his hands in his, pockets. 

“What! is it you?” he exclaimed, hurrying to 
greet me. “ It is a good wind that brings you to- 
day. It is the fete-day of Maillane ; we are to have 
music from Avignon, bulls, processions, farandole: 
it will be fine. My mother is now on her way from 
mass. We will breakfast, and then go to see the 
girls dance.” 

While he was speaking I looked around with emo- 
tion on the little room with its light upholstery, which 
I had not seen for so long and where I had passed 
so many pleasant hours. Nothing was changed. 
There was the same sofa with yellow cushions, the 
same straw arm-chairs, the Yenus without arms and 
the Yenus of Arles on the mantel, the portrait of the 
poet by Hebert and his photograph by Etienne Car- 
jat, in a corner by the window his writing-table — a 
poor little office-table — covered with dictionaries and 
musty old books. In the middle of this table I re- 
marked a large open blank book. It was “ Calendal,” 
Frederic Mistral’s new poem, which is to appear at 
the end of the year. Mistral has been seven years 
working at this poem, and it is now nearly six months 
since the last strophe was finished ; but still he can- 
not bring himself to part with it. There is always a 


THE POET MISTRAL. 


117 


line to be polished, a rhyme to be made more reso- 
nant. Writing in Proven9al though he does, he takes 
as much pains with every line as if it was to be read 
in the original by the whole world, and the beauty 
of the workmanship recognized. Oh, the worthy 
poet ! It was of Mistral that Montaigne might have 
said, “ Recollect the man who when asked why he 
took so much pains in an art that could come to the 
knowledge of so few, replied, ‘ A few will be enough 
— one will be enough — not one will be enough.’ ” 

I held in my hands the manuscript of “ Calendal,” 
and turned its leaves with a heart full of emotion. 
Suddenly there was a noise of fifes and drums in the 
street before the window, and Mistral hurried to his 
closet, took from it some bottles and glasses, pulled 
his table into the centre of the room, and as he 
opened the door to the musicians, turned to me and 
said, “ Do not laugh ; they have come to give me a 
serenade ; I am a member of the town council.” 

The little room was soon full of people. They 
placed their drums in the chairs, the flag in a corner, 
and the old wine passed around. Then, a few bot- 
tles having been emptied to the health of Monsieur 
Frederic, they discussed the fdte with formal gravity 
— whether the farandole would be as pretty as last 
year, and whether the bulls would do well — and then 
departed to serenade the rest of the councillors. At 
this moment Mistral’s mother arrived. 


118 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


The table was spread in a trice — a beautiful white 
linen cloth, and two plates. I knew the habits of the 
house, and that Mistral’s mother never appeared at 
table when there were guests. The old lady knew 
only her Provencal, and was not at ease in the com- 
pany of Frenchmen. Besides, her presence was need- 
ed in the kitchen. 

What a charming repast we had that morning — a 
piece of roast kid, some mountain cheese, grape jam, 
figs, and muscat grapes, the whole watered by the 
delicious Chateau neuf-des-papes which is such a beau- 
tiful ruby red in the glass. 

During dessert I went and brought the manuscript 
of “ Calendal ” to the table. 

“We are to go out, you know,” said the poet, with 
a smile. 

“ No, no. ‘ Calendal !’ ‘ Calendal !’ ” 

Mistral resigned himself, and in his soft melodious 
voice, beating the measure of his Hues with his hand, 
he began the first canto, “ Of a maiden mad for love 
— and now that tliat sad story is told — I would sing you 
that of a youth qf Cassis — a poor little anchovy fisher.” 

Outside, the bells were ringing for vespers, crack- 
ers were exploding on the square, fifes and drums 
passing to and fro, and the bulls from Camargue 
roaring as they were hurried along. I, with my 
elbows leaning on the table and my eyes filled with 
tears, listened to the tale of the Proven9al fisher-lad. 


THE POET MISTRAL. 


119 


Calendal was a simple fisher-boy of whom love 
made a hero. To win the heart of his angel, the 
beautiful Estdrelle, he wrought prodigies compared 
with which the twelve labors of Hercules were mere 
trifles. To win himself riches he invented powerful 
engines and dragged all the fishes of the sea into 
port. At another time the terrible bandit of .Olli- 
oules, Count Severan, is driven back to his eyrie with 
his cutthroats and concubines. A doughty youth 
was this Calendal. One day at Sainte-Baume he 
came upon two bands who were on the point of set- 
tling a dispute with blows over the tomb of Maitre 
Jacques, a ProveiiQal who made the framework of 
Solomon’s temple, if you please ! Calendal rushed 
into the midst of the carnage, and by his persuasions 
appeased the combatants. 

High up amid the cliffs of Lure grew an inacces- 
sible forest of cedars, where never wood-cutter dared 
set his foot. But Calendal did. He made it his 
abode for thirty days; for thirty days the sound of 
his axe could be heard burying itself in the trees. 
The forests roared, as one by one its giants fell, and 
when Calendal descended only a single cedar was 
left on the mountain. 

At last, as the reward of his valorous deeds, he 
won the love of his Esterelle, and was made consul 
by the inhabitants of Cassis. This is the story of 
Calendal; but what of Calendal? What the poem 


120 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


gives US, above all, is Provence — the Provence of the 
mountains, with the history, the legends, the land- 
scapes of a simple free people that has found its 
great poet before it passed away. And now build 
your railways, set up your telegraph-posts, banish 
from the schools the Provengal tongue. Provence 
will live forever in Mireio and in Calendal. 

“ Enough of poetry !” said Mistral, closing his book. 
“We must go and see the fete.” 

We went out. The whole village was in the streets. 
A brisk north wind had swept the sky, and the sun 
shone brightly on the red roofs soaked with rain. 
We arrived in time to witness the procession return. 
For an hour there was an interminable train of muf- 
fled penitents, white, blue, and gray; veiled sister- 
hoods; red banners with gilt flowers; large images 
with worn gilding borne on the shoulders of four 
men ; saints in colored faience, like idols, with large 
bouquets in their hands ; copes, monstrances, green 
velvet daises — all waving to the breeze amid the 
light of candles, sunshine, chants, liturgies, and the 
ringing of bells. 

When the procession was over, and the saints re- 
stored to their shrines, we went to see the bulls, and 
then the pretty series of Provencal games. It was 
night when we returned to the village. On the 
square before the cafd, where Mistral plays his game 


THE POET MISTRAL. 


121 


with his friend Zedore in the evening, a large bon- 
fire was burning. They were preparing for the far- 
andole; lanterns of cut paper were everywhere il- 
luminating the darkness. Soon the young people 
took their place, and, at the summons of the drum, a 
mad, frenzied ronde began around the bonfire, to be 
kept up all night. 

After supper was over, too tired to resume our 
rambles, we withdrew to Mistral’s chamber. It is a 
modest peasant’s room, with two large beds, no pa- 
per on the walls, and the joists of the ceiling bare. 
Four years ago, when the author of “ Mireio ” re- 
ceived a gift of three thousand francs from the Acad- 
emy, Madame Mistral proposed a carpet and ceiling 
for the chamber. 

“ No, no,” answered Mistral, “ that is poet’s money ; 
we must not touch it.” 

And the room remained bare, but, so long as the 
poet’s money lasted. Mistral’s door was never closed 
to any who knocked. 

I brought the manuscript of “ Calendal ” to the 
chamber, and begged Mistral to read me one more 
passage before I slept ; and while he was reading his 
verses to me in the beautiful Provengal tongue, more 
than three-fourths Latin, which queens have spoken 
and which now only our peasants understand, I was 
filled with wonder and admiration as I thought of th^ 


122 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


ruin iu which he found his mother tongue, and what 
he has done with it. I pictured to myself one of 
these old palaces of the Princes of Beaux, as we see 
them in the Alps — palaces without roofs, steps with- 
out balusters, windows without glasses, the blazonry 
of the gates corroded by moss, poultry picking in the 
front court, pigs wallowing under the colonettes of 
the galleries, asses browsing in the grass growing in 
the chapel, pigeons drinking rain out of holy-water 
fonts, and lastly, a few peasants’ huts built in the rear 
of the ruins. 

And then I saw how, one day, the son of one of 
these peasants, enamoured of these stately ruins, in- 
dignant at seeing them thus profaned, chases the 
pigs and cattle out of the court, and, the fays com- 
ing to his aid, rebuilds with his own toils the grand 
staircase, restores the wood-work to the walls, the 
glasses to the windows, reinstates the towers, regilds 
the hall of the throne, and conjures into existence 
the vast palace of other days, where popes and em- 
perors have lodged. 

This restored palace is the Provengal tongue. 

This peasant’s son is Mistral. 


THE TWO INNS. 


I WAS returning from Nimes one July afternoon. 
The heat was intense. Far as the eye could reach, 
the white, hot, dusty road was powdering the olive 
gardens and young oaks beneath the dead-silver sun 
that filled, as it were, the whole heavens. There was 
not a spot of shade, not a breath of air, nothing but 
the vibrations of the heated atmosphere and the 
shrill cry of the cicadas. I had walked for two 
hours through a perfect desert, when suddenly a 
group of houses loomed up out of the dust. It was 
a place which they called Saint Vincent’s Kelay, and 
consisted of five or six farm-houses, with long, red- 
roofed barns, a dry trough in the middle of a clump 
of gaunt fig-trees, and at the end of the hamlet two 
large inns facing each other on either side of the 
road. 

There was something striking in the appearance 
and proximity of these two inns. On one side of 
the road a large, new building, all animation, the 
doors standing open, the smoking diligence horses 
being unharnessed, the travellers alighting and tak- 
ing a hasty drink in the short shadow of the walls; 
the yard encumbered with mules and carts, wagoners 


124 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


resting in the shade while waiting for fresh teams; 
within, exclamations, striking of glasses, popping of 
corks, oaths, and above all the din a sonorous voice 
which made the windows rattle, singing, 

“ La belle Margoton 
Tout matin s’est levee, 

A pris son broc d’argent, 

A I’eau s’en est allee.” 

The inn on the opposite side was silent and deserted. 
The grass was growing under its gate, the shutters 
were broken, a musty branch of holly was hanging 
over the door, the steps were propped with bricks 
picked up on the road — all was so poor, so pitiful, it 
seemed a positive charity to stop there and ask for a 
drink. 

On entering I found a long, deserted, dingy room, 
appearing all the dingier and more deserted from the 
blinding light that streamed through its three bare 
windows. There were a few rickety tables, upon 
which stood some glasses dim with dust, a broken 
billiard-table, with its four pockets standing out like 
bowls, a yellow divan, and an old desk — all fast 
asleep in the close. Unwholesome heat. 

And the flies! Kever had I beheld the like! 
They were clustered like grapes on the ceiling and 
windows, and in the glasses. There was a buzzing 
when I opened the door, as if I had entered a bee- 
hive. 


THE TWO mNS. 


125 


A woman was standing in the recess of a window 
at one end of the room, leaning her head against the 
panes and gazing oat. 

I called twice, “Halloo! landlady 

She turned slowly, and I saw a wrinkled, cracked, 
earth-colored face, framed in long barbs of the rus- 
set lace worn by the old women among us. She was 
not an old woman, however. It was grief and tears 
that had faded her. 

“ What do you want V’ she asked, wiping her 
eyes. 

“I want to sit a while and have something to 
drink.’’ 

She looked at me, astonished, without stirring from 
the spot, as though she failed to comprehend. 

“ Is not this an inn ?” I asked. 

The woman sighed. “ Yes, if you will. But 
why do yon not go across the road like all the rest ? 
It is more cheerful there.” 

“ It is too gay for me. I like it better here.” 

And without waiting for an answer I seated my- 
self at a table. 

When, at last, she had satisfied herself that I was 
in earnest, she began bustling about with a very busy 
air, moving bottles, wiping glasses, driving off the 
flies. Evidently a guest was an unaccustomed event. 
Now and then the poor woman would pause as if in 
despair. Finally she passed into a back room, and I 


126 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


heard a rattling of keys, a tormenting of locks, rum- 
maging in a bread -box, blowing, dusting, wiping of 
plates, and from time to time a deep sigh or lialf- 
suppressed sob. 

After a quarter of an hour of this house-keeping, 
I had before me a plate of passerilles (dried grapes), 
an old loaf hard as a brick, and a bottle of piquette. 

‘‘You are served, sir,” said the sti’ange creature, 
and turning away she resumed with haste her place 
at the window. 

While I was drinking I made an attempt to en- 
gage her in conversation. 

“ You have not many guests, I fear, my poor wom- 
an,” said I. 

“ Oh ! no, sir, none at all. It used to be different 
when we were the only ones; we had relays, there 
were hunting parties here in the season, wagoners 
all the year round; but since our neighbors across 
the road came we have lost them all. They find it 
dull here, and, in fact, the house is not gay. I am 
not pretty, I have fevers, my little ones are dead ; 
but over there they laugh and joke all the time. 
The inn is kept by a woman from Arles, a handsome 
woman, with lace and a gold chain three double 
around her neck. The driver of the diligence is her 
lover, and she has a crowd of wheedling girls for 
chambermaids. So they all go to her — all the young 
people from BezouQes, Bedassan, Jonquieres. The 


THE TWO INNS. 


127 


wagoners go out of their way to pass by there, and 
I — I stay here all alone, wasting away.” 

She said this listlessly, with an absent air, still 
pressing her forehead against the panes. Evidently 
there was something in the inn across the way that 
preoccupied her mind. Suddenly there was a con- 
fusion and stir. The diligence was about setting off 
in a cloud of dust. I heard the cracking of a whip, 
exclamations from the postilion, girls calling out as 
they hurried to the door, ^^Adiousias ! adiousias 
and then the same voice resumed more lustily : 

“ A pris son broc d’argent 
A Teau s’en est allee; 

De la n’a vu venir, 

Trois chevaliers d’armee.” 

At the sound of this voice my hostess trembled all 
over and turned to me. 

“ Did you hear that she asked, in a low voice. 
“ That is my husband. Doesn’t he sing well ?” 

I looked at her, stupefied. 

“Your husband ! He goes over there too !” 

In a heart-broken accent, but with great gentleness, 
she answered, 

“ What would you have, sir ? The men are all 
like that. They don’t like the sight of tears, and 
since the little ones died, I do nothing but weep. 
And then this great barrack, where nobody ever 


128 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


comes, is so gloomy, and when he finds it too dull 
my poor Jose goes over there for a drink ; he has a 
fine voice and the woman from Arles makes him 
sing for her. Hist ! there he is beginning again !” 

And trembling and stretching out her arms, the 
woman stood before the window, looking uglier than 
ever with the great tears filling her eyes, listening 
in ecstasy to her Jose singing for the Arles woman : 

“ Le premier lui a dit 
Bon jour, belle mignonne.” 


AT MILIANAH. 

NOTP]S OF. TRAVEL. 


This time I will invite you to pass a day with me 
in a pretty town in Algiers. It will be a change 
from drums and cicadas. 

It is going to rain. The sky is gray, and the 
peaks of Mount Zaccar are enveloped in mist — a 
gloomy Sunday. The window of my little room 
looks out on the Arab ramparts. I try to amuse my- 
self with smoking cigarettes. The library of the 
hote^has been placed at my disposal, and in the col- 
lection — consisting of a register and a few volumes 
by Paul de Kock — I espy an odd volume of Mon- 
taigne. After rereading the admirable essay on 
“ The Idiot’s Death,” I find myself more dreamy 
and out of spirits than before. A few drops of rain 
have already begun to fall. Each drop makes a 
great star on the dust which has been accumulating 
on my window-sill since last year’s rains. My book 
glides from ray hands, and I pass long minutes gaz- 
ing at these melancholy stars. 

The village clock strikes two — an ancient mar- 
about of which I can distinguish from here the 
9 


130 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


thin bare walls. Poor marabout ! Who would have 
prophesied, thirty years ago, that it would one day 
bear in the middle of its great breast a large munici- 
pal dial-plate, and give the signal to the churches of 
Milianah to ring for vespers. Ding ! dong ! There 
are the bells off, and we shall not have the end of it 
for some time. Decidedly, this room is gloom}". 
The great spiders, called ‘‘ philosophers’ thoughts,” 
have woven their webs in all the corners. I am 
going out. 

On the principal square the band of the Third 
Regiment, paying no heed to a little rain, is ranging 
itself around its leader. The sub-prefect is walking 
back and forth on the arm of the justice of the 
peace. A few half-naked little Arabs are playing 
marbles in a corner, shouting vociferously. Yonder 
comes a ragged old Jew, astonished not to find the 
ray of sunshine he left here yesterday. One! two! 
three! The music strikes up — an old Talexy ma- 
zurka, which the hand-organs played under my win- 
dow a year ago. It annoyed me then; to-day it 
moves me to tears. 

How happy they are — these musicians of the 
Third ! With their eyes fixed on their semiquavers, 
drunk with rhythm and noise, they have no thought 
beyond the counting of their bars; their whole soul 
is in the square of paper, large as one’s hand, flutter- 
ing between the notches at the end of their instru- 


AT MILTANAH. 


131 


merit. Everything is there for these brave fellows; 
there is no homesickness in the national airs they 
play. Alas! I who do not belong to the music am 
pained by it and move away. 

AVJiat can I do with this gloomy Sunday after- 
noon? Sid ’Omar’s shop is open. I will enter. 

Though he keeps a shop, Sid ’Omar is not a shop- 
keeper. He is a prince of the blood, son of a former 
dey of Algiers, who was strangled by his Janissaries. 
On the death of his father Sid ’Omar took refuge in 
Milianah with his mother, whom he adored, and lived 
there like a great seigneur philosopher, with his 
hounds, falcons, horses, and women, in a pretty pal- 
ace with orange - trees and fountains. Then came 
the French. Sid ’Omar, at first our enemy and the 
ally of Abd-el-Kader, quarrelled with the latter, and 
tendered his submission to us. The emir revenged 
himself by pillaging Sid ’Omar’s palace in his ab- 
sence, cutting down his orange-trees, carrying off his 
women and horses, and having his mother’s head 
crushed under a large chest. Sid ’Omar’s anger was 
terrible. He enlisted in the French service, and we 
had not a more formidable and ferocious soldier 
while the war lasted. When it ended he returned 
to Milianah, and to this day he turns pale and his 
eyes flash at the mention of Abd-el-Kader’s name. 

Sid ’Omar is sixty years old, but in spite of age 
and the small -pox he is still handsome. He has 


132 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


long lashes, an expression like a woman’s, a charm- 
ing smile, and the air of a prince. Ruined by the 
war, noticing remains to him of his former opulence 
but a farm in the plains of Chelif, and a house at 
Milianah, where he lives with his three sons like any 
citizen. He is highly revered by the native chiefs, 
is chosen as arbiter of their disputes, and his decision 
is law for them nearly always. 'He goes out little, 
but is to be seen every afternoon in a shop attached 
to his house, with whitewashed walls, a circular 
bench, divans, long pipes, and two braziers. It is 
here that Sid ’Omar holds his court and administers 
justice. 

This Sunday afternoon the attendance is numer- 
ous. A dozen chiefs in their bernouses are squat- 
ting around the hall, each with a pipe by his side 
and a little cup of coffee in a filagree egg-shell. Ho 
one stirs as I enter. Sid ’Omar greets me from his 
seat with the most charming smile, and invites me to 
a place by him on a yellow silk divan. Then, with 
his finger on his lips, he signs me to listen. 

The case he is hearing is this: The caid of the 
Beni -Zougzougs having had a dispute with a Jew 
of Milianah over a piece of land, the two parties 
agreed to carry their difference before Sid ’Omar, 
and submit to his decision. The day of meeting 
was appointed and the witnesses summoned, when 
all at once our Jew, having reconsidered the matter, 


AT MILIANAH. 


133 


enters witliont witnesses and declares that he prefers 
to carry his cause to the French dejpaix. The 
affair is at this point when I arrive. 

The Jew, an old man, with a cadaverous beard, a 
maroon vest, velvet cap, and blue stockings, throws 
back his head, rolls his eyes imploringly, falls on his 
knees, kisses Sid ’Omar’s babouches, clasps his hands. 
I do not understand Arabic, but from the constant 
repetition of “ Zouge de paix, zouge de paix,” I 
guess the remainder of the eloquent discourse. We 
do not distrust Sid ’Omar; Sid ’Omar is wise, Sid 
’Omar is just, but the ‘zouge de paix’ will better 
manage our affair.” 

The indignant audience remains impassible, like an 
Arab that it is. Extended on his cushion, his eyes 
closed, his amber pipe in his mouth, Sid ’Omar, an 
image of the god of irony, smiles as he listens. Sud- 
denly, in the midst of his most eloquent period, the 
Jew is interrupted by an emphatic “ GarambaP’^ 
which stops him short. At the same time a Spaniard 
quits his seat, and approaching the Iscariot, discharges 
at him a whole volley of imprecations in all the lan- 
guages, among others certain French vocables too 
gross to be repeated. The son of Sid ’Omar, who 
understands French, quits the hall at hearing such 
language in the presence of his father — a noteworthy 
feature of Arab mannei’s. 

The audience is still impassible, Sid ’Omar is still 


134 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


smiling. The Jew rises and begins leaving the room 
backward, trembling in every limb and still chirping 
his eternal ‘‘ Zouge de paix, 2onge de paix !” The 
Spaniard, in a fury, rushes after him, comes np with 
him in the street, and administers two blows full in 
his face. Iscariot falls on his knees and crosses his 
arms. The Spaniard returns to the shop a trifle 
ashamed. Tlie Jew rises, looks sheepishly at the 
motley group around him of every hue — Maltese, 
Negro, Turk, Arab, all one in their hatred of the 
Jew and willin«:ness to see him insulted. Iscariot 
hesitates an instant, then laying hold of an Arab’s 
bernouse: ‘^You were there, Achmed ; you saw him 
“Strike me. You will be witness for me.” 

The Arab repulses him, drawing away his ber- 
uouse. He knows nothing about it, he has seen noth- 
ing — he turned his head just at that moment. 

“ But you, Kaddour, you saw it; you saw the Chris- 
tian strike me.” The negro makes a contemptuous 
gesture and moves away — he has seen nothing. Nei- 
ther did the little Maltese see anything, whose jet 
black eyes gleam maliciously beneath his cap, nor 
this Turk witli the brick-dust complexion, who runs 
off laughing with his basket of pomegranates on his 
head. It is to no purpose tliat the Jew cries, be- 
seeches, writhes — not one of them has seen anything. 
Luckily, however, two of liis co-religionists chance 
that way just at this moment, walking close to the 


AT MILIANAH. 


135 


walls with their eyes on the ground. The Jew espies 
them. “Quick! quick! brothers! come with me to 
the homme d'affaires, the zouge de paix ; you saw • 
him strike an old man !” 

“Saw him ! should think we did !” 

\ 

There is great tumult and excitement in Sid 
’Omar’s shop. The cafetier is refilling the cups and 
lighting the pipes. The talk and laughter is most 
animated. It is so amusing to see a Jew thrashed ! 
In the midst of the confusion and smoke I make my 
escape. I wish to hang around the old Israelite, and 
observe how his co-religionists will treat the affront 
to their brother. “Come and dine with me to-day, 
moussiour,” said Sid ’Omar to me. I accept with 
thanks and depart. 

Everybody is astir in the Jews’ quarter; the af- 
fair has already made a great noise. The stalls are 
deserted. Tailors, embroiderers, harness -makers, all 
Israel is in the street ; the men in their velvet caps 
and blue woollen hose, gathered in groups, talking 
and gesticulating vehemently ; the women, pale, and 
straight as wooden idols in their scant gowns with 
gold plastrons, their faces encircled in black bandlets, 
move whiningly from group to group. As I arrive 
a great movement has just taken place. The Jew, 
the hero of the occasion, leaning on the arms of his 
witnesses, passes between two rows of caps amid a 


136 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


shower of exhortations. “ Avenge yourself, brother ! 
Avenge the Jewish people ! Fear nothing, you have 
the law on your side.” 

A hideous dwarf, smelling of leather, oil, and wax, 
approaches me with a piteous air and heaving deep 
sighs. “See how they treat us poor Jews. Look, 
tliey have nearly murdered him !” 

In truth the poor Iscariot, as he passed by me with 
his dull eye and haggard face, dragging himself 
along rather than walking, did seem more dead than 
alive. The only remedy capable of reaching his case 
is a handsome indemnity — and they are carrying him, 
not to a medical man but to a lawyer. 

The number of lawyers in Algiers is large ; 
they are in fact nearly as numerous as the grasshop- 
pers. The business is profitable, and then it has the 
advantage that you go right into it without examina- 
tion or probation. In Algiers they make lawyers 
much as in Paris they make men of letters. All that 
is needed is a little French, Spanish, and Arabic, a 
code in the holster and the possession of certain apti- 
tudes. The lawyer’s functions are very varied. He 
is by turns advocate, broker, commissioner, expert, 
public writer — he is the Maitre Jacques of the col- 
ony: only Harpagon has but one Maitre Jacques, 
while the colony has more than it needs. In general, 
to avoid the expense of an office, these gentlemen re- 
ceive their clients at the cafe on the public square. 


AT MILIANAH. 


137 


It was towards tliis cafd that the worthy Iscariot was 
wending liis way with a witness on each side. We 
will not follow them. 

Leaving the Jews’ quarter, I passed in front of the 
Arab bureau. With its slate roof and the French 
flag floating over it, it might be taken for a village 
mayoralt3\ I know the dragoman, and will enter 
and have a smoke with him. 

The front court is filled with ragged Arabs. There 
are some fifty of them waiting for an audience, squat- 
ting the length of the wall in their bernouses. This 
Bedouin antechamber, notwithstanding that it is in 
the open air, exhales a strong smell of human flesh. 
I pass quickly along. In the bureau I find the drag- 
oman in the hands of two disputants, quite naked be- 
neath their dirty cloaks, who are telling some story 
of a stolen rosary, and gesticulating violently. I seat 
myself on a mat in the corner and look on. A pret- 
ty costume this of the dragoman, and the dragoman 
of Milianah sets it off well, the two seem made for 
each other. The costume is sky blue, with black 
frogs and bright gold buttons ; the dragoman is fair, 
fresh, and curly-haired — a handsome hussar full of 
humor and conceits, a trifle garrulous (he speaks so 
many tongues !), a little sceptical (he has made the 
acquaintance of Renan at the Orientalist school), a 
lover of sport, as much at his ease in an Arab biv- 
ouac as at the sub-prefect’s soii-ees, dancing and mak- 


138 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


ing COUSCOUS to perfection — in a word, a Parisian. 
Here is my man, and it will be no matter of surprise 
that the ladies adore him. 

Decidedly this story of the stolen rosary promises 
to be long. I shall not wait for the end of it. 

When I leave the house, I find the antechamber 
all in commotion. They are crowding round a tall, 
pale native, draped in a black bernouse, who looks 
very proud. He fought a panther a week ago in the 
Zaccar. The panther is dead, but the man’s arm has 
been torn almost to pieces. Every morning he comes 
to the Arab quarter to have it dressed, and every 
time they stop him in the court and make him re- 
hearse his story. He speaks slowly, in a fine gut- 
tural voice, occasionally putting aside his bernouse 
and showing his left arm fastened to his breast and 
covered with bandages. 

I have hardly reached the street when a violent 
storm sets in — rain, thunder, lightning, sirocco. I 
enter a gate at hazard and find myself in the midst 
of a nest of vagrants piled up under the arcades of a 
Moorish court. This court, the habitual resort of the 
Mussulman paupers, belongs to the mosk of Milia- 
nah, and is called the Court of the Poor. 

Big lean hounds covered with vermin crouch 
around me with a malicious air. Eestins: ascainst 
one of the pillars of the gallery, 1 try to put a good 
face on it and watch the rain splattering back from 


AT MILIANAH. 


139 


the colored flagging. The ragamuffins lie piled up 
on the ground. Near me is a young woman, almost 
beautiful, her throat and limbs bare, large iron brace- 
lets on her wrists and ankles, singing a strange air 
composed of three melancholy nasal notes. As she 
sings she nurses a red bronze infant, and with the 
arm that is free piles barley in a stone mortar. The 
rain, driven by a remorseless wind, inundates the 
limbs of the nurse and body of the nurseling, but 
paying no heed to it she continues to sing and to 
pile the barley. 

The storm abates. Profiting by the lull, I hasten 
to leave the court and direct my steps towards Sid 
’Omar’s. It is dinner-time. In crossing the public 
square, I again meet the old Jew. lie is leaning 
on the arm of his lawyer, his witnesses following 
exultantly, and a troop of ugly little Jews caracoling 
around him. The faces of all are radiant. The law- 
yer has taken charge of the case, and will demand 
two thousand francs indemnity. 

The dinner is sumptuous at Sid ’Omar’s. The 
dining-room opens on an elegant Moorish court 
where several fountains are singing. Among other 
dishes I remark chicken aux amandes, couscous, and 
terrapin, and the honey biscuits which they call 
houchees du kadi. In the way of wine, nothing but 
champagne. Despite the Mussulman law Sid ’Omar 
drinks a little — when his servants’ backs are turned. 


140 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


Dinner being ended, we pass into onr host’s charn* 
ber, where comfitures, pipes, and coffee are served. 
The furniture is of the simplest description : a divan 
and a few mats ; in the rear a very tall bed, on which 
are some small red cushions embroidered with gold. 
On the wall hangs an old Turkish painting repre- 
senting the exploits of a certain Admiral Hamadi. 
In Turkey only one color is used in painting. This 
picture is devoted to green. The sea, sky, ships, the 
admiral himself, are all green, and such green 1 
Arab etiquette requires us to withdraw early. The 
coffee drunk and pipes smoked, I wish my host good- 
night, and leave him with his women. 


Where shall I end my evening ? It is too early 
to retire, the spahi’s clarions have not yet sounded 
tattoo. Besides, Sid ’Omar’s little gold cushions are 
dancing farandoles before my eyes and keep me 
awake. I find myself in front of the theatre. I will 
enter a moment. 

The theatre of Milianah is an old storage depot, 
passably well disguised as a playhouse. Large ar- 
gand lamps, which they fill with oil between the 
acts, perform the office of lights. In the pit the 
spectators stand, in the orchestra they sit on bench- 
es ; the galleries are very proud of their straw chairs. 
All around the hall runs a long dark corridor with- 


AT MILIANAH. 


141 


out seats. The play has begun. To iny surprise, 
the actors are not bad — the men, I mean ; they have 
life and spirit. Nearly all are amateurs, soldiers of 
the Third. The regiment is very proud of them, and 
comes every evening to applaud them. As for the 
women, it is the old story of the provincial tlieatres 
— pretentious, exaggerated, false. Among the ac 
tresses two, however, intei’est me ; they are very 
young, debutantes on the stage. Their parents are 
in the hall and are enchanted, convinced that their 
daughters will earn millions of duros at this business. 
The legend of Rachel, a Jewess, millionaire, and ac- 
tress, is already current among them. 

Nothing could be more touchingly comical than 
the sight of these two little Jewesses on the boards, 
keeping timidly to one side of the stage, powdered, 
painted, low-necked, and shamefaced, from time to 
time gabbling off a phrase without understanding it, 
and gazing stupidly out into the hall with their large 
Hebraic eyes. 

I quit the theatre. Out of the surrounding dark- 
ness I hear cries in a corner of the square. No 
doubt some Maltese, explaining themselves with 
stabs. 

I return slowly to the hotel, walking along the 
ramparts. Delicious scents of orange and thaja 
rise from the plain. The air is soft, the sky almost 
clear. Yonder, at the farther end of the road, rises 


142 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


ail old phantom of a wall, the remains of some 
ancient temple. This wall is sacred. Every day 
women come to suspend there some votive offering — 
fragments of haiks and foutas, long tresses of red 
hair tied with silver threads, skirts of bernouses — all 
floating in a slender ray of moonlight in the soft 
breath of night. 


HOMESICKNESS. 


This morning I was roused with the first glimmer 
of dawn bj the furious rolling of a drum. 

A drum here in my pines at such an hour ! That 
is something strange indeed ! 

I sprang quickly out of bed and ran to open the 
door. There was no one. The noise had ceased. 
Two or three curlews were fluttering in the wet 
vines, and shaking their wings, a soft breeze was 
singing in the trees. In the east the sun was slowly 
struggling out of a golden mist on the sharp peaks 
of the Alps. A first ray was already gilding the 
roof of my mill. The invisible drum strikes up 
again. Kan-plan-plan ! ran-plan-plan ! 

Deuce take the idiot ! I had forgotten him. But 
who can he be, this barbarian that comes here with 
’ liis drum to salute the morning sun from the depths 
of the woods ? I look about me in vain — no one — 
nothing but the tufts of lavender and the pine-woods 
descending to the foot of the hill. Perhaps some 
goblin has hidden liimself in the brush to make sport 
of me. Ariel no doubt, or Master Puck. He said 
to himself as he passed, “ This Parisian is too quiet 


144 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


and contented here ; we will tease him a little !” 
And with that he took his big drum and — ran-plan- 
plan ! ran-plan-plan ! Will you be quiet, imp? You 
will wake up my cicadas. 

It was not Puck. It was Gouguet Fran9ois, nick- 
named Pistolet, drummer of the Thirty-first, on a 
fortnight’s leave. Pistolet has grown tired of the 
country, suffers with homesickness, and when he can 
borrow the town drum goes into the woods to beat it, 
while he dreams of Prince Eugene’s barracks. 

It is on my little hill that he has come to dream 
to-day. There he stands, straight as a pine-tree, with 
his drum between his legs. Flocks of frightened 
partridges start up at his feet, but he does not see 
them ; the scent of lavender fills the air, but he does 
not know it 

Neither does he see the cobwebs trembling in the 
sun among the branches, nor the pine needles that 
leap upon his drum. Lost in his dreaming and 
drumming, he gazes lovingly at his stick as it fiies, 
and with each roll his broad simpleton face expands 
with satisfaction. 

Ran-plan-plan ! ran-plan-plan ! 

How beautiful is the great barracks, with its large 
fiag-stones, long rows of windows, inhabitants in gren- 
adier-caps, and its low arcades full of the noise of 
platters ! 

Ran-plan-plan ! ran-plan-plan ! 


HOMESICKNESa 


145 


Oh, the sounding stairway, the whitewashed cor- 
ridors, the crowded, odorous dormitory, the polishing 
of belts, the blacking of pots, the bread-plates, the 
iron beds with their gray coverlets, the guns shining 
on the rack ! 

Ran-plan-plan ! ran-plan-plan ! 

Oh, the long nights of sentinel watch, the old sen- 
try-box with the rain pouring in, the cold feet, the 
fine carriages splashing you as they pass. And then 
the extras — the days spent in the stocks, the plank 
pillow, the beating of the reveille on cold, rainy 
days, the tattoos in the fog, the men hurrying in out 
of breath! 

Ean-plan-plan ! ran-plan-plan ! 

Oh, the woods of Vincennes, the white cotton 
gloves, the walks on the ramparts, the drill-yard, the 
vivandieres, the absinthe, the confidences between 
two hiccups, the sentimental songs, sung with one 
liand on the heart ! 

Dream on, poor man ! — it is not for me to hinder 
you. Strike your drum boldly — it is not I who can 
afford to laugh at yOu. If you are homesick for 
your barracks, am not I also for mine ? 

My Paris pursues me, as yours does you. What 
sorry Provengals do we make ! Yonder in our Paris 
we shall sigh for our blue Alps and the scent of wild 
lavender ; but here in Provence we long for our bar- 
racks, and everything that recalls them to us is dear. 

10 


146 


STORIES OF PROVENCE. 


The village clock strikes eight. Pistolet starts to 
return. As he descends the hill I hear him still 
drumming, while I, here in my grass, tormented 
with homesickness, seem to see my Paris defiling 
away in the pines to the sound of the drum. 

Ah! Paris — Paris — forever Paris! 


BIN-HUR : A TALE OF TEE CEEIST. 

By Lew. Wallace. New .Edition, pp. 552. 16mo, Cloth, 

$1 50. 

Anything so startling, new, and distinctive as the leading feature of this 
romance does not often appear in works of fiction. . . . Some of Mr. Wal- 
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an accomplished master of style. — W. F. Times. 

Its real basis is a description of the life of the Jews and Romans at the 
beginning of the Christian era, and this is both forcible and brilliant. . . . 
We are carried through a surprising variety of scenes; we witness a sea- 
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From the opening of the volume to the very close the reader’s interest 
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One of the most remarkable and delightful books. It is as real and 
warm as life itself, and as attractive as the grandest and most heroic 
chapters of history. — Indianapolis Journal. 

The book is one of unquestionable power, and will be read with un- 
wonted interest by many readers who are weajy of the conventional novel 
and romance. — Boston Journal. 


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A Novel. By Chaelotte Dunning, pp. 330. 16mo, 

Cloth, $1 00. 

It embodies tlirougbout the expressions of genuine American frank- 
ness, is well conceived, well managed, and brought to a delightful 
and captivating close. — Albany Press. 

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A clever and entertaining novel. It is wholly social, and the 
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defined and brilliant ; and the movement is effective and satisfac- 
tory. . . . The love story is as good as the social study, making alto- 
gether an uncommonly entertaining book for vacation reading. — 
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8vo, Paper 
4to, Paper 
8vo, Paper 
8 VO, Paper 
4to, Paper 
8vo, Paper 
4to, Paper 
4to, Paper 
4to, Paper 


2 


Harper <k Brothers’ Popular Novels. 


PRIOK 

BLACK’S ( W.) Yolande. Illustrated ... 1 2mo, Cloth, 1 1 25 ; 4to, Paper $ 20 


BLACKMORE’S (R. D.) Alice Lorraine 8vo, Paper 50 

Christowell 4to, Paper 20 

Clara Vaughan 4to, Paper 15 

Cradock Nowell 8vo, Paper 60 

Cripps, the Carrier. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 50 

Ereraa 8 vo, Paper 60 

Lorna Doone 12ino, Cloth, 00; 8vo, Paper 26 

Mary Anerley 16mo, Cloth, 1 00; 4to, Paper 15 

The Maid of Sker. 8vo, Paper 60 

Tommy Upmore 16mo, Cloth, 50 cts.; Paper, 35 cts. ; 4to,Paper 20 

BRADDON’S (Miss) An Open Verdict 8vo, Paper 36 

A Strange World 8vo, Paper 40 

Asphodel 4to, Paper 16 

Aurora Floyd 8vo, Paper 40 

Barbara; or. Splendid Misery 4to, Paper 15 

Birds of Prey. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

Bound to John Company. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

Charlotte’s Inheritance 8vo, Paper 36 

Cut by the County 16mo, Paper 25 

Dead Men’s Shoes 8vo, Paper 40 

Dead Sea Fruit. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 50 

Eleanor’s Victory 8vo, Paper 60 

Fenton’s Quest. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

Flower and Weed 4to, Paper 10 

Hostages to Fortune. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

Ishmael 4to, Paper 20 

John Marchmont’s Legacy 8vo, Paper 60 

Joshua Haggard’s Daughter. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

Just as I Am 4to, Paper 1^ 

Lost for Love. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

Mistletoe Bough, 18'78. Edited by M. E. Braddon 4to, Paper 15 

Mistletoe Bough, 1879. Edited by M. E. Braddon 4to, Paper 10 

Mistletoe Bough, 1884. Edited by M. E. Braddon 4to, Paper 20 

Mount Royal 4to, Paper 15 

Phantom Fortune 4to, Paper 20 

Publicans and Sinners 8vo, Paper 60 

Strangers and Pilgrims. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

Taken at the Flood 8vo, Paper 60 

The Cloven Foot 4to, Paper 16 

The Levels of Arden. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

To the Bitter End. Illustrated 8 vo. Paper 50 

Under the Red Flag 4to, Paper 10 

Vixen 4to, Paper 15 

Weavers and Weft 8vo, Paper 26 

Wyllard’s Weird 4to, Paper 20 

BREAD-WINNERS, THE 16mo, Cloth 1 00 

BRONTE’S (Charlotte) Jane Eyre. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth 1 00 


4to, Paper, 16 cents ; 8vo, Paper 40 


Harper <£• Brothers' Popular Novels. 


3 


BRONTE’S (Charlotte) Shirley. Ill’d. .12mo, Cloth, $1 00 ; 8vo, Paper: 

The Professor. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, $1 00; 4to, Paper 

Villette. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, $1 00; 8vo, Paper 

BRONTE’S (Anne) The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Ill’d... . 1 2mo, Cloth 

BRONTE’S (Emily) Wuthering Heights. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth 

BULWER’S (Lytton) A Strange Story. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth 

8vo, Paper 

Devereux 8vo, Paper 

Ernest Maltravers 8vo, Paper 

Godolphin 8vo, Paper 

Kenelm Chillingly 12mo, Cloth, $1 25; 8vo, Paper 

Leila 1 2mo, Cloth, 

Night and Morning 8 vo. Paper 

Paul Clifford 8vo, Paper 

Pausanias the Spartan Timo, Cloth, 75 cents ; 8vo, Paper 

Pelham 8vo, Paper 

Rienzi 8vo, Paper 

The Caxtons 12mo, Cloth 

The Coming Race 12mo, Cloth, 100; 12mo, Paper 

The Last Days of Pompeii 8vo, Paper, 26 cents ; 4to, Paper 

The Parisians. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, $1 60; 8vo, Paper 

The Pilgrims of the Rhine. 8vo, Paper 

What will He do with it? 8vo, Paper 

Zanoni 8to, Paper 

COLLINS’S (Wilkie) Novels. Ill’d Library Edition. 12mo, Cloth, per vol. 
After Dark, and Other Stores. — Antonina. — Armadale. — Basil. — 
Hide-and-Seek. — Man and Wife. — My Miscellanies. — No Name. 
— Poor Miss Finch. — The Dead Secret. — The Law and the Lady. 
— The Moonstone. — The New Magdalen. — The Queen of Hearts. 
— The Two Destinies. — The Woman in White. 

Antonina 8vo, Paper 

Armadale. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

“ I Say No ”.16mo. Cloth, 50 cts. ; 16mo, Paper, 35 cts. ; 4to, Paper 

Man and Wife 4to, Paper 

My Lady’s Money 32mo, Paper 

No Name. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

Percy and the Prophet 32mo, Paper 

Poor Miss Finch. Illustrated 8vo, Cloth, $1 10; 8vo, Paper 

The Law and the Lady. Illusti-ated 8vo, Paper 

The Moonstone. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

The New Magdalen 8vo, Paper 

The Two Destinies. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

The Woman in White. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

CRAIK’S (Miss G. M.) Anne Warwick 8vo, Paper 

Dorcas 4to, Paper 

F'ortune’s Marriage 4to, Paper 

Godfrey Helstone 4to, Paper 

Hard to Bear 8vo, Paper 

Mildred 8vo, Paper 


PRIOR 

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1 25 
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Harper <& Brothers' Popular Novels. 


CRAIK’S (Miss G. M.) Sydney 4to, Paper $ 16 

Sylvia’s Choice 8vo, Paper 30 

Two Women 4to, Paper 16 

DICKENS’S (Charles) Works. Household Edition. Illustrated. 8vo. 

Set of 16 vols., Cloth, in box 22 00 


A Tale of Two Cities.Paper $ 60 
Cloth 1 00 

Barnaby Budge Paper 1 00 

Cloth 1 60 

Bleak House Paper 1 00 

Cloth 1 60 

Christmas Stories Paper 1 00 

Cloth 1 60 
David Copperfield. . .Paper 1 00 
Cloth 1 60 

DombeyandSon Paper 1 00 

Cloth 1 60 
Great Expectations... Paper 1 00 
Cloth 1 60 

Little Dorrit Paper 1 00 

Cloth 1 50 
Martin Chuzzlewit.... Paper 1 00 


Martin Chuzzlewit Cloth 1 

Nicholas Nickleby Paper 1 

Cloth 1 

Oliver Twist Paper 

Cloth 1 

Our Mutual Friend Paper 1 

Cloth 1 

Pickwick Papers Paper 1 

Cloth 1 

Pictures from Italy, Sketches by 
Boz, American Notes ...Paper 1 
Cloth 1 

The Old Curiosity Shop... Paper 
' Cloth 1 

Uncommercial Traveller, Hard 
Times, Edwin Drood... Paper 1 
Cloth 1 


Pickwick Papers .'. 4to, Paper 

The Mudfog Papers, &c 4to, Paper 

Mystery of Edwin Drood. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

Hard Times .". 8vo, Paper 

Mrs. Lirriper’s Legacy 8vo, Paper 

DE MILLE’S A Castle in Spain. II I’d 8vo, Cloth, $1 00 ; 8vo, Paper 

Cord and Creese. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

The American Baron. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

The Cryptogram. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

The Dodge Club. Illustrated... .8 vo. Paper, 60 cents ; 8vo, Cloth 

The Living Link. Illustrated. ...8 vo, Paper, 60 cents ; 8vo, Cloth 

DISRAELI’S (Earl of Beaconsfield) Endymion 4to, Paper 

The Young Duke 12mo, Cloth, $1 50; 4to, Paper 

ELIOT’S (George) Works. Lib. Ed. 12 vols. Iird...l2mo, Cl., per vol. 

Popular Edition. 12 vols. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, per vol. 

Adam Bede. — Daniel Deronda, 2 vols. — Essays and Leaves from a 
Note-Book. — Felix Holt, the Radical. — Middlemarch, 2 vols. — 
Romola. — Scenes of Clerical Life, mid Silas Marner. — The Mill 
on the Floss. — Poems : with Brother Jacob and The Lifted Veil. 
Fireside Edition. Containing the above in 6 vols. {Sold only in 

Sets.) 12mo, Cloth 

Adam Bede. Illustrated 4to, Paper 

Amos Barton 32mo, Paper 

Brother Jacob. — The Lifted Veil 32mo, Paper 

Daniel Deronda 8vo, Paper 

Felix Holt, the Radical 8vo, Paper 

Janet’s Repentance ,..32mo. Paper 


60 

00 

60 

60 

00 

00 

60 

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60 

76 

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Harper <Sc Brothers* Popular Novels, 


5 


ELIOT’S (George) Middlemarcli 

Mr. Gilfil’s Love Story 

Romola. Illustrated 

Silas Marner 

Scenes of Clerical Life 

The Mill on the Floss 

EDWARDS’S (A. B.) Barbara’s History 

Debenham’s Vow. Illustrated 

Half a Million of Money 

Lord Brackenbury 

Miss Carew 

My Brother’s Wife 

EDWARDS’S (M. B.) Disarmed 

Exchange No Robbery 

Kitty 

Pearl a 

The Flower of Doom, and Other Stories 

FARJEON’S An Island Pearl. Illustrated 

At the Sign of the Silver Flagon 

Blade-o’-Grass. Illustrated 

Bread-and-Cheese and Kisses. Illustrated 

Golden Grain. Illustrated 

Great Porter Square 

Jessie Trim 

Joshua Marvel 

Love’s Harvest 

Love’s Victory 

Shadows on the Snow, illustrated 

The Bells of Penraven 

The Duchess of Rosemary Lane 

The King of No-Land. Illustrated 

GASKELL’S (Mrs.) Cousin Phillis 

Cranford 

Mary Barton 8vo, Paper, 40 cents ; 

Moorland Cottage 

My Lady Ludlow 

Right at Last, &c 

Sylvia’s Lovers 

Wives and Daughters. Illustrated 

GIBBON’S (C.) A Hard Knot 

A Heart’s Problem 

By Mead and Stream 

For Lack of Gold 

For the King 

Heart’s Delight 

In Honor Bound 

Of High Degree 

Robin Gray 

Queen of the Meadow 


PlilOB 

.32mo, Paper 

20 


60 

,12 mo. Paper 

20 


60 


60 


60 


60 


60 


16 


36 


25 


15 


16 


36 


20 

16mo, Paper 

25 


30 


25 


30 


36 


36 


20 


36 


40 


20 


20 


30 


10 


35 


26 


20 

.16mo, Cloth 1 

26 

4to, Paper 

20 

.18mo, Cloth 

75 


20 

. 1 2mo, Cloth 1 

60 


40 


60 

1 2 mo. Paper 

25 


10 


20 


35 


30 


20 


36 


20 


35 


16 


6 


Harper c& Brothers' Popular Novels. 


GIBBON’S (C.) The Braes of Yarrow 4to, Paper $ 20 

The Golden Shaft 4to, Paper 20 

HARDY’S (Thos.) Fellow-Townsmen 32mo, Paper 20 

A Laodicean. Illustrated 4 to, Paper 20 

Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid 4to, Paper 10 

HARRISON’S (Mrs.) Golden Rod 32mo, Paper 25 

Helen Troy 16mo, Cloth 1 00 

HAY’S (M. C.) A Dark Inheritance 32mo, Paper 16 

A Shadow on the Threshold 32mo, Paper 20 

Among the Ruins, and Other Stories 4to, Paper 15 

At the Seaside, and Other Stories 4to, Paper 15 

Back to the Old Home 32mo, Paper 20 

Bid Me Discourse 4to, Paper 10 

Dorothy’s Venture 4to, Paper 15 

For Her Dear Sake 4to, Paper 16 

Hidden Perils 8vo, Paper 25 

Into the Shade, and Other Stories 4to, Paper 16 

Lady Carmichael’s Will 32mo, Paper 16 

Lester’s Secret 4to, Paper 20 

Missing 3 2 mo. Paper 20 

My First Offer, and Other Stories 4to, Paper 16 

Nora’s Love Test 8vo, Paper 26 

Old Myddelton’s Money 8vo, Paper 26 

Reaping the Whirlwind 32mo, Paper 20 

The Arundel Motto 8vo, Paper 26 

The Sorrow of a Secret 32mo, Paper 16 

The Squire’s Legacy 8vo, Paper 26 

Under Life’s Key, and Other Stories 4to, Paper 16 

Victor and Vanquished 8vo, Paper 26 

HOEY’S (Mrs. C.) A Golden Sorrow... 8vo, Paper 40 

All or Nothing 4to, Paper 16 

Kate Cronin’s Dowry 32mo, Paper 16 

The Blossoming of an Aloe 8vo, Paper 30 

The Lover’s Creed 4to, Paper 20 

The Question of Cain 4to, Paper 20 

HUGO’S (Victor) Ninety-Three. Ill’d. 12mo, Cloth, ^1 50 ; 8vo, Paper 26 

The Toilers of the Sea. Ill’d 8vo, Cloth, 160; 8 vo. Paper 60 

JAMES’S (Henry, Jun.) Daisy Miller 32mo, Paper 20 

An International Episode 32mo, Paper 20 

Diary of a Man of Fifty, and A Bundle of Letters 32mo, Paper 26 

The four above-mentioned works in one volume 4to, Paper 26 

Washington Square. Illustrated IGmo, Cloth 1 26 

JOHNSTON’S (R. M.) Dukesborough Tales. Illustrated 4to, Paper 26 

Old Mark Langston 16mo, Cloth 1 00 

LANG’S (Mrs.) Dissolving Views... IGmo, Cloth, 60 cents ; IGmo, Paper 36 

LAWRENCE’S (G. A.) Anteros 8vo, Paper 40 

Brakespeare 8vo, Paper 40 

Breaking a Butterfly 8vo, Paper 36 

Guy Livingstone Tiino, Cloth, $1 60 ; 4to, Paper 10 


Harper dr Brothers^ Popular Novels. 


7 


LAWRENCE’S (G, A.) Hagareiie 8vo, Paper 

Maurice Dering 8vo, Paper 

Sans Merci 8vo, Paper 

Sword and Gown 8vo, Paper 

LEVER’S (Charles) A Day’s Ride 8vo, Paper 

Darrington 8vo, Paper 

Gerald Fitzgerald 8vo, Paper 

Lord Kilgobbin. Illustrated 8vo, Cloth, 00; 8vo, Paper 

One of Them 8vo, Paper 

Roland Cashel. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

Sir Brook Fosbrooke 8vo, Paper 

Sir Jasper Carew 8vo, Paper 

That Boy of Norcott’s. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

The Bramleighs of Bishop’s Folly 8vo, Paper 

The Daltons 8vo, Paper 

The Fortunes of Glencore 8vo, Paper 

The Martins of Cro’ Martin 8vo, Paper 

Tony Butler 8vo, Paper 

LILLIE’S (Mrs. L. C.) Prudence. IH’d. 16mo, Cl., 90 cts. ; IGino, Paper 

McCarthy’s (Justin) Comet of a Season 4to, Paper 

Donna Quixote 4to, Paper 

Maid of Athens 4to, Paper 

My Enemy’s Daughter. Illustrated 8v'o, Paper 

The Commander’s Statue :]2mo. Paper 

The Waterdale Neighbors 8vo, Paper 

MACDONALD’S (George) Alec Forbes 8vo, Paper 

Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood 12mo, Cloth 

Donal Grant 4to, Paper 

Guild Court 8vo, Paper 

Warlock o’ Glenwarlock 4to, Paper 

Weighed and Wanting 4to, Paper 

M CLOCK’S (Miss) A Brave Lady, lll’d. 12mo, Cl., 90 cents. ; 8 vo. Paper 

Agatha’s Husband. Ill’d 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 8 vo. Paper 

A Legacy 12mo, Cloth 

A Life for a Life 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 8vo, Paper 

A Noble Life 12mo, Cloth 

Avillion, and Other Tales 8vo, Paper 

Christian’s Mistake 12ino, Cloth 

Hannah. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 8vo, Paper 

Head of the Family, lll’d 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 8vo, Paper 

His Little Mother 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 4to, Paper 

John Halifax, Gentleman. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 4to, Paper 

Miss Tommy 12ino, Cloth, 90 cents; 12nio, Paper 

Mistress and Maid 12ino, Cloth, 90 cents; 8vo, Paper 

My Mother and I. Illustrated.. 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 8vo, Paper 

Nothing New 8vo, Paper 

Ogilvies. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 8vo, Paper 


PKIOB 

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8 


Hari^r Brothers* Popular Novels. 


MULOCK’S (Miss) Olive. Ill’d 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 8vo, Paper ^ 

The Laurel Bush. Ill’tl 12nio, Cloth, 90 cents; 8vo, Paper 

The Woman’s Kingdom. Ill’d. . . 12mo, Cloth, 90 cts. ; 8vo, Paper 

Two Marriages 12mo, Cloth 

Unkind Word, and Other Stories 12mo, Clotli 

Young Mrs. Jardine 12mo, Cloth, $1 25; 4to, Paper 

MURRAY’S (D. C.) A Life’s Atonement 4to, Paper 

A Model Father 4to, Paper 

By the Gate of the Sea 4to, Paper, 15 cents ; 12mo, Paper 

Hearts 4 to. Paper 

The Way of the World 4to, Paper 

Val Strange 4to, Paper 

Adrian Vidal. Illustrated 4to, Paper 

NORRIS’S (W. E.) A Man of Ilis Word, &c 4to, Paper 

Heaps of Money 8vo, Paper 

Mademoiselle de Mersac 4to, Paper 

Matrimony 4 to. Paper 

No New Thing 4to, Paper 

That Terrible Man 12mo, Paper 

Thirlby Hall. Illustrated 4to, Paper 

OLIPH ANT’S (Laurence) Altiora Peto . 4to, Paper, 20 cts. ; 1 6mo, Paper 

Piccadilly 16rno, Paper 

OLIPHANT’S (Mrs.) Agnes 8vo, Paper 

A Son of the Soil 8vo, Paper 

Athelings 8vo, Paper 

Brownlows 8vo, Paper 

Carit^. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

Chronicles of Carlingford 8vo, Paper 

Days of My Life 12mo, Cloth 

For Love and Life 8vo, Paper 

Harry Joscelyn 4to, Paper 

He That Will Not when He May 4to, Paper 

Hester 4to, Paper 

Innocent. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

It was a Lover and His Lass 4to, Paper 

Lady Jane 4to, Paper 

Lucy Crofton 12mo, Cloth 

Madam IGino, Clotli, 75 cents; 4to, Paper 

Madonna Mary 8vo, Paper 

Miss Marjoribanks 8vo, Paper 

Mrs. Arthur 8vo, Paper 

Ombra 8vo, Paper 

Phoebe, Junior 8vo, Paper 

Sir Tom 4to, Paper 

Squire Arden 8vo, Paper 

The Curate in Charge 8vo, Paper 

The Fugitives 4to, Paper 

The Greatest Heiress in England 4to, Paper 

The Ladies Lindores 16mo, Cloth, $1 00; 4to, Paper 


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Harper (& Brothers' Popular Novels. 


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DLIPHANT’S (Mrs.) The Laird of Norlaw 12rao, Cloth $1 

The Last of the Mortimers 12rao, Cloth 1 

The Primrose Path 8vo, Paper 

The Story of Valentine and his Brother 8vo, Paper 

The Wizard’s Son 4to, Paper 

Within the Precincts 4to, Paper 

Young Musgrave 8vo, Paper 

?AYN’S (James) A Beggar on HorscbacU. 8vo, Paper 

A Confidentia.1 Agent 4to, Paper 

A Grape from ? Thorn 4to, Paper 

A Woman’s Vengeance 8vo, Paper 

At Her Mercy 8vo, Paper 

Bred in the Bone 8vo, Paper 

By Proxy 8vo, Paper 

Carlyon’s Year 8vo, Paper 

For Cash Only 4to, Paper 

Found Dead 8vo, Paper 

From Exile 4to, Paper 

Gwendoline’s Harvest 8vo, Paper 

Halves 8vo, Paper 

High Spirits 4to, Paper 

Kit. Illustrated 4to, Paper 

Less Black than We’re Painted 8vo, Paper 

Murphy’s Master 8vo, Paper 

One of the Family 8vo, Paper 

The Best of Husbands 8vo, Paper 

The Canon’s Ward, Illustrated 4to, Paper 

The Talk of the Town 4to, Paper 

Thicker than Water Kimo, Cloth, $1 00; 4 to, Paper 

Under One Roof 4to, Paper 

Walter’s Word 8vo, Paper 

What He Cost Her 8vo, Paper 

Won — Not Wooed 8vo, Paper 

READE’S Novels: Household Edition, fil’d 12mo, Cloth, per vol. 1 

A Simpleton Wandering Heir. - -- - - 

A Terrible Temptation. 

A Woman-Hater. 

Foul Play. 

Good Stories. 

Griffith Gaunt. 

Hard Cash. 


1*U10K 

60 

60 

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It is Never Too Late to Mend. 
Love me Little, Love me Long. 
Peg W offington, Christie John- 
stone, &c. 

Put Yourself in His Place. 

The Cloister and the Hearth. 
White Lies. 


A Perilous Secret... 12mo, Cl., 76 ct.-^. ; 4to, Pap., 20 cts. ; 16mo, Pap. 40 

A Hero and a Martyr 8vo, Paper 15 

A Simpleton 8vo, Paper 30 

A Terrible Temptation. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 26 

A Woman-Hater, fil’d 8vo, Paper, 30 cents; 12mo, Paper 20 

Foul Play 8vo, Paper 30 

Good Stories of Man and Other Animals. Illustrated...4to, Paper 20 

Griffith Gaunt. Illustrated... 8vo, Paper SO 


10 Harper ^ Brothers' Popular Novels. 


PEIOB 

READE’S (Charles) Hard Cash. Illustrated 8vo, Paper f 36 

It is Never Too Late to Mend 8vo, Paper 36 

Jack of all Trades 16mo, Paper 16 

Love Me Little, Love Me Long 8vo, Paper 30 

Multum in Parvo, Illustrated 4to, Paper 15 

Peg Woffington, &c 8vo, Paper 36 

Put Yourself in His Place. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 35 

The Cloister and the Hearth 8vo, Paper 35 

The Coming Man 32mo, Paper 20 

The Jilt 32mo, Paper 20 

The Picture 16mo, Paper 15 

The Wandering Heir. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 20 

White Lies 8vo, Paper 30 

ROBINSON’S (F. W.) A Bridge of Glass 8vo, Paper 30 

A Fair Maid 4to, Paper 20 

A Girl’s Romance, and Other Stories 8vo, Paper 30 

As Long as She Lived 8vo, Paper 60 

Carry’s Confession 8vo, Paper 60 

Christie’s Faith 12mo, Cloth 1 75 

Coward Conscience 4to, Paper 15 

Her Face was Her Fortune 8vo, Paper 40 

Lazarus in London 4to, Paper 20 

Little Kate Kirby. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

Mattie: a Stray 8vo, Paper 40 

No Man’s Friend 8vo, Paper 60 

Othello the Second 32mo, Paper 20 

Poor Humanity 8vo, Paper 50 

PoorZeph! 32mo, Paper 20 

Romance on Four Wheels 8vo, Paper 15 

Second-Cousin Sarah. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

Stern Necessity 8vo, Paper 40 

The Barmaid at Battleton 32mo, Paper 15 

The Black Speck 4to, Paper 10 

The Hands of Justice 4to, Paper 20 

The Man She Cared For 4to, Paper 20 

The Romance of a Back Street 32mo, Paper 15 

True to Herself 8vo, Paper 60 

RUSSELL’S (W. Clark) Auld Lang Syne 4to, Paper 10 

A Sailor’s Sweetheart 4to, Paper 15 

A Sea Queen 16mo, Cloth, $1 00; 4to, Paper 20 

An Ocean Free Lance 4to, Paper 20 

Jack’s Courtship 16mo, Cloth, 1 00; 4to, Paper 25 

John Holds worth. Chief Mate 4to, Paper 20 

Little Loo 4to, Paper 20 

My Watch Below 4to, Paper 20 

On the Fo’k’sle Head .4ta Paper 15 

Round the Galley Fire i... ■ito. Paper 16 

The “ Lady Maud Schooner Yacht. Illustrated .4to, Paper 20 

Wreck of the “ Grosvenor ” 8vo, Paper, 30 cents ; 4to, Paper 15 


Harper dt Brothers* Popular Novels. 1 ) 


PEICK 

SCOTT’S Novels. See Wavet'ley Novels. 

SHERWOOD’S (Mrs, John) A Transplanted Rose 12nio, Cloth $1 00 

TABOR’S (Eliza) Eglantine 8vo, Paper 40 

Hope Meredith 8vo, Paper 35 

Jeanie’s Quiet Life 8vo, Paper 30 

Little Miss Primrose 4to, Paper 15 

Meta’s Faith 8vo, Paper 35 

The Blue Ribbon 8vo, Paper 40 

The Last of Her Line 4to, Paper 15 

The Senior Songman 4to, Paper 20 

THACKERAY’S (Miss) Bluebeard’s Keys 8vo, Paper 35 

Da Capo 32mo, Paper 20 

Miscellaneous Works 8vo, Paper 90 

Miss Angel 8vo, Paper 50 

Miss Williamson’s Divagations 4to, Paper 15 

Old Kensington. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

THACKERAY’S (W. M.) Denis Duval, Illustrated 8vo, Paper 25 

Henry Esmond, and Lovel the Widower. 12 Ill’s 8vo, Paper 60 

Henry Esmond 8vo, Pa., 50 cents ; 4to, Paper 15 

Lovel the Widower 8 vo. Paper 20 

Pendennis. 179 Illustrations 8vo, Paper 75 

The Adventures of Philip. 64 Illustrations 8vo, Paper 60 

The Great Hoggarty Diamond 8vo, Paper 20 

The Newcomes. 162 Illustrations 8vo, Paper 90 

The Virginians. 160 Illustrations 8vo, Paper 90 

Vanity Fair. 32 Illustrations 8vo, Paper 80 

THACKERAY’S Works. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, per vol. 1 25 

Novels: Vanity Fair. — Pendennis. — The Newcomes. — The Virgin- 
ians, — Philip. — Esmond, and Lovel the Widower. 6 vols. Mi^ 
cellaneous: Barry Lyndon, Hoggarty Diamond, &c. — Paris and 
Irish Sketch-Books, &c, — Book of Snobs, Sketches, &c. — Four 
Georges, English Humorists, Roundabout Papers, &c. — Catharine, 

&c. 6 vols. 

TOWNSEND’S (G. A.) The Entailed Hat 16mo, Cloth 1 60 

TROLLOPE’S (Anthony) An Eye for an Eye 4to, Paper 10 

An Old Man’s Love 4to, Paper 15 

Ayala’s Angel 4to, Paper 20 

Cousin Henry 4to, Paper 10 

Doctor Thorne 12mo, Cloth 1 60 

Doctor Wortle’s School 4to, Paper 16 

Framley Parsonage 4to, Paper 15 

Harry Heathcote of Gangoil. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 20 

He Knew He was Right, Illustrated 8vo, Paper 80 

Is He Popenjoy? 4to, Paper 20 

John Caldigate 4to, Paper 16 

Kept in the Dark 4to, Paper 15 

Lady Anna 8vo, Paper 30 

Marion Fay. Illustrated 4to, Paper 20 

Phineas Redux. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 75 


12 


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It surpasses all its predecessors. — N. Y. Tribune. 


STOfflONTH'S ENGUSH BICTIOMY. 

A Dictionary of the English Language, Pronouncing, Etymological, 
and Explanatory, Embracing Scientific and Other Terms, Numer- 
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Words. By the Rev. James Stormonth. The Pronunciation 
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As regards thoroughness of etymological research and breadth of modern inclusion, 
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This may serve in great measure the purposes of an English cyclopaedia. It gives 
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^ most valuable addition to the library of the scholar and of the general reader. 
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A well-planned and carefully executed work, which has decided merits of its owr 
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A trustworthy, truly scholarly dictionary of our English language. — Christian Intel- 
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